The Deluge. Vol. 2

"To the road!" cried Karl Gustav. And overturning with the hilt of his sword the Polish horseman who was raising his sabre above him, with one spring he came out of the whirl of the fight; the Swedes broke the Polish rank and sprang after him with all their force, as a herd of deer hunted by dogs rush whither they are led by their leader.

The Polish horsemen turned their horses after them, and the chase began. Both came out on the highroad from Rudnik to Boyanovka. They were seen from the front yard where the main battle was raging, and just then it was that the voices were heard crying, —

"The king, the king! Save the king!"

But the Swedes in the front yard were so pressed by Shandarovski that they could not think even of saving themselves; the king raced on then with a party of not more than twelve men, while after him were chasing nearly thirty, and at the head of them all Roh Kovalski.

The lad who was to point out the king was involved somewhere in the general battle, but Roh himself recognized Karl Gustav by the knot of red ribbons. Then he thought that his opportunity had come; he bent in the saddle, pressed his horse with the spurs, and rushed on like a whirlwind.

The pursued, straining the last strength from their horses, stretched along over the broad road. But the swifter and lighter Polish horses began soon to gain on them. Roh came up very quickly with the hindmost Swede; he rose in his stirrups for a better blow, and cut terribly; with one awful stroke he took off the arm and the shoulder, and rushed on like the wind, fastening his eyes again on the king.

The next horseman was black before his eyes; he hurled him down. He split the head and the helmet of the third, and tore farther, having the king, and the king only, in his eye. Now the horses of the Swedes began to pant and fall; a crowd of Polish horsemen overtook them and cut down the riders in a twinkle.

Roh had already passed horses and men, so as not to lose time; the distance between him and Karl Gustav began to decrease. There were only two men between him and the king.

Now an arrow, sent from a bow by some one of the Poles, sang near the ear of Pan Roh, and sank in the loins of the rider rushing before him. The man trembled to the right and the left; at last he bent backward, bellowed with an unearthly voice, and fell from the saddle.

Between Roh and the king there was now only one man. But that one, wishing evidently to save the king, instead of helping turned his horse. Kovalski came up, and a cannonball does not sweep a man from the saddle as he hurled him to the ground; then, giving a fearful shout, he rushed forward like a furious stag.

The king might perhaps have met him, and would have perished inevitably; but others were flying on behind Roh, and arrows began to whistle; any moment one of them might wound his horse. The king, therefore, pressed his heels more closely, bent his head to the mane, and shot through the space in front of him like a sparrow pursued by a hawk.

But Roh began not only to prick his own horse with the spurs, but to beat him with the side of the sabre; and so they sped on one after the other. Trees, stones, willows, flashed before their eyes; the wind whistled in their ears. The king's hat fell from his head; at last he threw down his purse, thinking that the pitiless rider might be tempted by it and leave the pursuit; but Kovalski did not look at the purse, and rolled his horse on with more and more power till the beast was groaning from effort.

Roh had evidently forgotten himself altogether; for racing onward he began to shout in a voice in which besides threats there was also a prayer, —

"Stop, for God's mercy!"

Then the king's horse stumbled so violently that if the king had not held the bridle with all his power the beast would have fallen. Roh bellowed like an aurochs; the distance dividing him from Karl Gustav had decreased notably.

After a while the steed stumbled a second time, and again before the king brought him to his feet Roh had approached a number of yards.

Then he straightened himself in the saddle as if for a blow. He was terrible; his eyes were bursting out, his teeth were gleaming from under his reddish mustaches. One more stumble of the horse, another moment, and the fate of the Commonwealth, of all Sweden, of the entire war would have been decided. But the king's horse began to run again; and the king, turning, showed the barrels of two pistols, and twice did he fire.

One of the bullets shattered the knee of Kovalski's horse; he reared, then fell on his forefeet, and dug the earth with his nose.

The king might have rushed that moment on his pursuer and thrust him through with his rapier; but at the distance of two hundred yards other Polish horsemen were flying forward; so he bent down again in his saddle, and shot on like an arrow propelled from the bow of a Tartar.

Kovalski freed himself from his horse. He looked for a while unconsciously at the fleeing man, then staggered like one drunk, sat on the road, and began to roar like a bear.

But the king was each instant farther, farther, farther! He began to diminish, to melt, and then vanished in the dark belt of pine scrub.

Meanwhile, with shouting and roaring, came on Kovalski's companions. There were fifteen of them whose horses held out. One brought the king's purse, another his hat, on which black ostrich feathers were fastened with diamonds. These two began to cry out, —

"These are yours, comrade! they belong to you of right."

Others asked: "Do you know whom you were chasing? That was Karl himself."

"As God is true! In his life he has never fled before any man as before you. You have covered yourself with immense glory!"

"And how many men did you put down before you came up with the king?"

"You lacked only little of freeing the Commonwealth in one flash, with your sabre."

"Take the purse!"

"Take the hat!"

"The horse was good, but you can buy ten such with these treasures."

Roh gazed at his comrades with dazed eyes; at last he sprang up and shouted, —

"I am Kovalski, and this is Pani Kovalski! Go to all the devils!"

"His mind is disturbed!" cried they.

"Give me a horse! I'll catch him yet," shouted Roh.

But they took him by the arms, and though he struggled they brought him back to Rudnik, pacifying and comforting him along the road.

"You gave him Peter!" cried they. "See what has come to this victor, this conqueror of so many towns and villages!"

"Ha, ha! He has found out Polish cavaliers!"

"He will grow tired of the Commonwealth. He has come to close quarters."

"Vivat, Roh Kovalski!"

"Vivat, vivat, the most manful cavalier, the pride of the whole army!"

And they fell to drinking out of their canteens. They gave Roh one, and he emptied the bottle at a draught.

During the pursuit of the king along the Boyanovka road the Swedes defended themselves in front of the priest's house with bravery worthy of their renowned regiment. Though attacked suddenly and scattered very quickly, they rallied as quickly around their blue standard, for the reason that they were surrounded by a dense crowd. Not one of them asked for quarter, but standing horse to horse, shoulder to shoulder, they thrust so fiercely with their rapiers that for a time victory seemed to incline to their side. It was necessary either to break them again, which became impossible since a line of Polish horsemen surrounded them completely, or to cut them to pieces. Shandarovski recognized the second plan as the better; therefore encircling the Swedes with a still closer ring, he sprang on them like a wounded falcon on a flock of long-billed cranes. A savage slaughter and press began. Sabres rattled against rapiers, rapiers were broken on the hilts of sabres. Sometimes a horse rose, like a dolphin above the sea waves, and in a moment fell in the whirl of men and horses. Shouts ceased; there were heard only the cry of horses, the sharp clash of steel, gasping from the panting breasts of the knights; uncommon fury had mastered the hearts of Poles and Swedes. They fought with fragments of sabres and rapiers; they closed with one another like hawks, caught one another by the hair, by mustaches, gnawed with their teeth; those who had fallen from their horses and were yet able to stand stabbed with their knives horses in the belly and men in the legs; in the smoke, in the steam from horses, in the terrible frenzy of battle, men were turned into giants and gave the blows of giants; arms became clubs, sabres lightning. Steel helmets were broken at a blow, like earthen pots; heads were cleft; arms holding sabres were swept away. They hewed without rest; they hewed without mercy, without pity. From under the whirl of men and horses blood began to flow along the yard in streams.

The great blue standard was waving yet above the Swedish circle, but the circle diminished with each moment. As when harvesters attack grain from two sides, and the sickles begin to glitter, the standing grain disappears and the men see one another more nearly each moment, thus did the Polish ring become ever narrower, and those fighting on one side could see the bent sabres fighting on the opposite side.

Pan Shandarovski was wild as a hurricane, and ate into the Swedes as a famished wolf buries his jaws in the flesh of a freshly killed horse; but one horseman surpassed him in fury, and that was the youth who had first let them know that the Swedes were in Rudnik, and now had sprung in with the whole squadron on the enemy. The priest's colt, three years old, which till that time had walked quietly over the land, shut in by the horses, could not break out of the throng; you would have said he had gone mad, like his master. With ears thrown back, with eyes bursting out of his bead, with erect mane, he pushed forward, bit, and kicked; but the lad struck with his sabre as with a flail; he struck at random, to the right, to the left, straight ahead; his yellow forelock was covered with blood, the points of rapiers had been thrust into his shoulders and legs, his face was cut; but these wounds only roused him. He fought with madness, like a man who has despaired of life and wishes only to avenge his own death.

But now the Swedish body had decreased like a pile of snow on which men are throwing hot water from every side. At last around the king's standard less than twenty men remained. The Polish swarm had covered them completely, and they were dying gloomily, with set teeth; no hand was stretched forth, no man asked for mercy. Now in the crowd were heard voices: "Seize the standard! The standard!"

When he heard this, the lad pricked his colt and rushed on like a flame. When every Swede had two or three Polish horsemen against him, the lad slashed the standard-bearer in the mouth; he opened his arms, and fell on the horse's mane. The blue standard fell with him.

The nearest Swede, shouting terribly, grasped after the staff at once; but the boy caught the standard itself, and pulling, tore it off in a twinkle, wound it in a bundle, and holding it with both hands to his breast, began to shout to the sky, —

"I have it, I won't give it! I have it, I won't give it!"

The last remaining Swedes rushed at him with rage; one thrust the flag through, and cut his shoulder.

Then a number of men stretched their bloody hands to the lad, and cried: "Give the standard, give the standard!"