The Deluge. Vol. 2

From out that cloud large groups of men began to push, and run toward the forest in disorder, wild, without caps, without helmets, without armor. Soon after them burst out a whole flood of people in the most dreadful disorder. Artillery, infantry, cavalry mingled together fled toward the forest at random, in alarm and terror. Some soldiers cried in sky-piercing voices; others fled in silence, covering their heads with their hands. Some in their haste threw away their clothing; others stopped those running ahead, fell down themselves, trampled one another; and right there behind them, on their shoulders and heads, rushed a line of Polish cavaliers. Every moment you saw whole ranks of them spurring their horses and rushing into the densest throngs of men. No one defended himself longer; all went under the sword. Body fell upon body. The Poles hewed without rest, without mercy, on the whole plain; along the bank of the river toward the forest, as far as the eye could reach you saw merely pursued and pursuing; only here and there scattered groups of infantry offered an irregular, despairing resistance; the cannons were silent. The battle ceased to be a battle; it had turned into a slaughter.

All that part of the army which fled toward the forest was cut to pieces; only a few squadrons of Swedish troopers entered it. After them the light squadrons of Poles sprang in among the trees.

But in the forest peasants were waiting for that unslain remnant, – the peasants who at the sound of the battle had rushed together from all the surrounding villages.

The most terrible pursuit, however, continued on the road to Warsaw, along which the main forces of the Swedes were fleeing. The young Markgraf Adolph struggled twice to cover the retreat; but beaten twice, he fell into captivity himself. His auxiliary division of French infantry, composed of four hundred men, threw away their arms; three thousand chosen soldiers, musketeers and cavalry, fled as far as Mnishev. The musketeers were cut down in Mnishev; the cavalry were pursued toward Chersk, until they were scattered completely through the forest, reeds, and brush; there the peasants hunted them out one by one on the morrow.

Before the sun had set, the army of Friederich, Markgraf of Baden, had ceased to exist.

On the first scene of battle there remained only the standard-bearers with their standards, for all the troops had followed the enemy. And the sun was well inclined to its setting when the first bodies of cavalry began to appear from the side of the forest and Mnishev. They returned with singing and uproar, hurling their caps in the air, firing from pistols. Almost all led with them crowds of bound prisoners. These walked at the sides of the horses they were without caps, without helmets, with heads drooping on their breasts, torn, bloody, stumbling every moment against the bodies of fallen comrades. The field of battle presented a terrible sight. In places, where the struggle had been fiercest, there lay simply piles of bodies half a spear-length in height. Some of the infantry still held in their stiffened hands long spears. The whole ground was covered with spears. In places they were sticking still in the earth; here and there pieces of them formed as it were fences and pickets. But on all sides was presented mostly a dreadful and pitiful mingling of bodies, of men mashed with hoofs, broken muskets, drums, trumpets, caps, belts, tin boxes which the infantry carried; hands and feet sticking out in such disorder from the piles of bodies that it was difficult to tell to what body they belonged. In those places specially where the infantry defended itself whole breastworks of corpses were lying.

Somewhat farther on, near the river, stood the artillery, now cold, some pieces overturned by the onrush of men, others as it were ready to be fired. At the sides of them lay the cannoneers now held in eternal sleep. Many bodies were hanging across the guns and embracing them with their arms, as if those soldiers wished still to defend them after death. The brass, spotted with blood and brains, glittered with ill omen in the beams of the setting sun. The golden rays were reflected in stiffened blood, which here and there formed little lakes. Its nauseating odor was mingled over the whole field with the smell of powder, the exhalation from bodies, and the sweat of horses.

Before the setting of the sun Charnyetski returned with the king's regiment, and stood in the middle of the field. The troops greeted him with a thundering shout. Whenever a detachment came up it cheered without end. He stood in the rays of the sun, wearied beyond measure, but all radiant, with bare head, his sword hanging on his belt, and he answered to every cheer, —

"Not to me, gentlemen, not to me, but to the name of God!"

At his side were Vitovski and Lyubomirski, the latter as bright as the sun itself, for he was in gilded plate armor, his face splashed with blood; for he had worked terribly and labored with his own hand as a simple soldier, but discontented and gloomy, for even his own regiments shouted, —

"Vivat Charnyetski, dux et victor (commander and conqueror)!"

Envy began then to dive into the soul of the marshal.

Meanwhile new divisions rolled in from every side of the field; each time an officer came up and threw a banner, captured from the enemy, at Charnyetski's feet. At sight of this rose new shouts, new cheers, hurling of caps into the air, and the firing of pistols.

The sun was sinking lower and lower.

Then in the one church that remained after the fire in Varka they sounded the Angelus; that moment all uncovered their heads. Father Pyekarski, the company priest, began to intone: "The Angel of the Lord announced unto the Most Holy Virgin Mary!" and a thousand iron breasts answered at once, with deep voices: "And she conceived of the Holy Ghost!"

All eyes were raised to the heavens, which were red with the evening twilight; and from that bloody battle-field began to rise a pious hymn to the light playing in the sky before night.

Just as they had ceased to sing, the Lauda squadron began to come up at a trot; it had chased the enemy farthest. The soldiers throw more banners at Charnyetski's feet. He rejoiced in heart, and seeing Volodyovski, urged his horse toward him and asked, —

"Have many of them escaped?"

Pan Michael shook his head as a sign that not many had escaped, but he was so near being breathless that he was unable to utter one word; he merely gasped with open mouth, time after time, so that his breast was heaving. At last he pointed to his lips, as a sign that he could not speak. Charnyetski understood him and pressed his head.

"He has toiled!" said he; "God grant us more such."

Zagloba hurried to catch his breath, and said, with chattering teeth and broken voice, —

"For God's sake! The cold wind is blowing on me, and I am all in a sweat. Paralysis will strike me. Pull the clothes off some fat Swede and give them to me, for everything on me is wet, – wet, and it is wet in this place. I know not what is water, what is my own sweat, and what is Swedish blood. If I have ever expected in my life to cut down so many of those scoundrels, I am not fit to be the crupper of a saddle. The greatest victory of this war! But I will not spring into water a second time. Eat not, drink not, sleep not, and then a bath! I have had enough in my old years. My hand is benumbed; paralysis has struck me already; gorailka, for the dear God!"

Charnyetski, hearing this, and seeing the old man really covered completely with the blood of the enemy, took pity on his age and gave him his own canteen.

Zagloba raised it to his mouth, and after a while returned it empty; then he said, —

"I have gulped so much water in the Pilitsa, that we shall soon see how fish will hatch in my stomach; but that gorailka is better than water."

"Dress in other clothes, even Swedish," said Charnyetski.

"I'll find a big Swede for Uncle!" said Roh.

"Why should I have bloody clothes from a corpse?" said Zagloba; "take off everything to the shirt from that general whom I captured."

"Have you taken a general?" asked Charnyetski, with animation.

"Whom have I not taken, whom have I not slain?" answered Zagloba.

Now Volodyovski recovered speech: "We have taken the younger markgraf, Adolph; Count Falckenstein, General Wegier, General Poter Benzij, not counting inferior officers."

"But the Markgraf Friederich?" asked Charnyetski.

"If he has not fallen here, he has escaped to the forest; but if he has escaped, the peasants will kill him."

Volodyovski was mistaken in his previsions. The Markgraf Friederich with Counts Schlippenbach and Ehrenhain, wandering through the forest, made their way in the night to Chersk; after sitting there in the ruined castle three days and nights in hunger and cold, they wandered by night to Warsaw. That did not save them from captivity afterward; this time, however, they escaped.

It was night when Charnyetski came to Varka from the field. That was perhaps the gladdest night of his life, for such a great disaster the Swedes had not suffered since the beginning of the war. All the artillery, all the flags, all the officers, except the chief, were captured. The army was cut to pieces, driven to the four winds; the remnants of it were forced to fall victims to bands of peasants. But besides, it was shown that those Swedes who held themselves invincible could not stand before regular Polish squadrons in the open field. Charnyetski understood at last what a mighty result this victory would work in the whole Commonwealth, – how it would raise courage, how it would rouse enthusiasm; he saw already the whole Commonwealth, in no distant future, free from oppression, triumphant. Perhaps, too, he saw with the eyes of his mind the gilded baton of the grand hetman on the sky.

He was permitted to dream of this, for he had advanced toward it as a true soldier, as a defender of his country, and he was of those who grow not from salt nor from the soil, but from that which pains them.

Meanwhile he could hardly embrace with his whole soul the joy which flowed in upon him; therefore he turned to Lyubomirski, riding at his side, and said, —

"Now to Sandomir! to Sandomir with all speed! Since the army knows now how to swim rivers, neither the San nor the Vistula will frighten us!"

Lyubomirski said not a word; but Zagloba, riding a little apart in Swedish uniform, permitted himself to say aloud, —

"Go where you like, but without me, for I am not a weathercock to turn night and day without food or sleep."

Charnyetski was so rejoiced that he was not only not angry, but he answered in jest, —

"You are more like the belfry than the weathercock, since, as I see, you have sparrows in your head. But as to eating and rest it belongs to all."

To which Zagloba said, but in an undertone. "Whoso has a beak on his face has a sparrow on his mind."

CHAPTER XXXVI

After that victory Charnyetski permitted at last the army to take breath and feed the wearied horses; then he was to return to Sandomir by forced marches, and bend the King of Sweden to his fall.

Meanwhile Kharlamp came to the camp one evening with news from Sapyeha. Charnyetski was at Chersk, whither he had gone to review the general militia assembled at that town. Kharlamp, not finding the chief, betook himself at once to Pan Michael, so as to rest at his quarters after the long journey.

His friends greeted him joyously; but he, at the very beginning, showed them a gloomy face and said, —

"I have heard of your victory. Fortune smiled here, but bore down on us in Sandomir. Karl Gustav is no longer in the sack, for he got out, and, besides, with great confusion to the Lithuanian troops."

"Can that be?" cried Pan Michael, seizing his head.

Pan Yan, Pan Stanislav, and Zagloba were as if fixed to the earth.