The Deluge. Vol. 2

"Oh, Turk!"

"Your worthiness, as a man advanced in years, cannot understand this; but I, like May, must let my blood out yet."

"But you are older than I."

"Only in experience, not in years. I have been able conservare juventutem meam (to preserve my youth), and more than one man has envied me that power. Permit me, your worthiness, to receive the Lubelsk deputation. I will promise to aid them at once; let the poor men comfort themselves before we comfort the poor women."

"That is well," said the hetman; "then I will write the letters." And he went out.

Immediately after were admitted the deputies from Lubelsk, whom Zagloba received with uncommon dignity and seriousness. He promised assistance on condition that they would furnish the army with provisions, especially with every kind of drink. When the conditions were settled, he invited them in the name of the voevoda to supper. They were glad, for the army marched that night toward Lublin. The hetman himself was active beyond measure, for it was a question with him of effacing the memory of the Sandomir defeat by some military success.

The siege began, but advanced rather slowly. During this time Kmita was learning from Volodyovski to work with the sabre, and made uncommon progress. Pan Michael, knowing that his art was to be used against Boguslav's neck, held back no secret. Often too they had better practice; for, approaching the castle, they challenged to single combat the Swedes, many of whom they slew. Soon Kmita had made such advance that he could meet Pan Yan on equal terms; no one in the whole army of Sapyeha could stand before him. Then such a desire to try Boguslav seized his soul that he was barely able to remain at Lublin, especially since the spring brought back to him strength and health. His wounds had healed, he ceased to spit blood, life played in him as of old, and fire gleamed in his eyes. At first the Lauda men looked at him frowningly; but they dared in not attack, for Volodyovski held them with iron hand; and later, when they considered his acts and his deeds, they were reconciled completely, and his most inveterate enemy, Yuzva Butrym, said, —

"Kmita is dead; Babinich is living, let him live."

The Lubelsk garrison surrendered at last, to the great delight of the army; then Sapyeha moved his squadrons toward Warsaw. On the road they received tidings that Yan Kazimir himself, with the hetmans and a fresh army, was advancing to aid them. News came too from Charnyetski, who was marching to the capital from Great Poland. The war, scattered through the whole country, was gathering at Warsaw, as a cloud scattered in the sky gathers and thickens to give birth to a storm with thunders and lightnings.

Sapyeha marched through Jelehi, Garvolin, and Minsk to the Syedlets highway, to join the general militia of Podlyasye. Pan Yan took command of this multitude; for though living in Lubelsk, he was near the boundary of Podlyasye, and was known to all the nobles, and greatly esteemed by them as one of the most famous knights in the Commonwealth. In fact, he soon changed that nobility, gallant by nature, into a squadron second in no way to regular troops.

Meanwhile they moved from Minsk forward to Warsaw very hastily, so as to stop at Praga one day. Fair weather favored the march. From time to time May showers sped past, cooling the ground and settling the dust; but on the whole the weather was marvellously fair, – not too hot, not too cold. The eye saw far through the transparent air. From Minsk they went mounted; the wagons and cannon were to follow next day. An immense eagerness reigned in the regiments; the dense forests on both sides of the whole road were ringing with echoes of military songs, the horses nodded as a good omen. The squadrons regularly and in order flowed on, one after the other, like a river shining and mighty; for Sapyeha led twelve thousand men, besides the general militia. The captains leading the regiments were gleaming in their polished cuirasses; the red flags waved like gigantic flowers above the heads of the knights.

The sun was well toward its setting when the first squadron, that of Lauda, marching in advance, beheld the towers of the capital. At sight of this, a joyful shout tore from the breasts of the soldiers.

"Warsaw! Warsaw!"

That shout flew like thunder through all the squadrons, and for some time was to be heard over two miles of road the word, "Warsaw! Warsaw!"

Many of Sapyeha's knights had never been in the capital; many of them had never seen it; therefore the sight made an uncommon impression on them. Involuntarily all reined in their horses; some removed their caps, others made the sign of the cross; tears streamed from the eyes of others, and they stood in silent emotion. All at once Sapyeha came out from the rear ranks on a white horse, and began to fly along the squadrons.

"Gentlemen!" cried he, in a piercing voice, "we are here first! To us luck, to us honor! We will drive the Swedes out of the capital!"

"We'll drive them! We'll drive them! We'll drive them!"

And there rose a sound and a thunder. Some shouted continually, "We'll drive them!" Others cried, "Strike, whoso has manhood!" Others, "Against them, the dog-brothers!" The rattle of sabres was mingled with the shouts of the knights. Eyes flashed lightning, and from under fierce mustaches teeth were gleaming. Sapyeha himself was sputtering like a pine torch. All at once he raised his baton, and cried, —

"Follow me!"

Near Praga the voevoda restrained the squadron and commanded a slow march. The capital rose more and more clearly out of the bluish distance. Towers were outlined in a long line on the azure of the sky. The red many-storied roofs of the Old City were gleaming in the evening light. The Lithuanians had never seen anything more imposing in their lives than those white lofty walls pierced with multitudes of narrow windows; those walls standing like lofty swamp-reeds over the water. The houses seemed to grow some out of others, high and still higher; but above that dense and close mass of walls with windows and roofs, pointed towers pierced the sky. Those of the soldiers who had been in the capital previously, either at an election or on private affairs, explained to the others what each pile meant and what name it bore. Zagloba especially, as a person of experience, told all to the Lauda men, and they listened to him eagerly, wondering at his words and the city itself.

"Look at that tower in the very centre of Warsaw! That is the citadel of the king. Oh that I could live as many years as I have eaten dinners at the king's table! I would twist Methuselah into a ram's horn. The king had no nearer confidant than me; I could choose among starostaships as among nuts, and give them away as easily as hob-nails. I have given promotion to multitudes of men, and when I came in senators used to bow to me to the girdle, in Cossack fashion. I fought duels also in presence of the king, for he loved to see me at work; the marshal of the palace had to close his eyes."

"That is a tremendous building!" said Roh Kovalski: "and to think that these dogs have it all in hand!"

"And they plunder terribly," added Zagloba. "I hear that they even take columns out of the walls and send them to Sweden; these columns are of marble and other valuable stones. I shall not recognize the dear corners; various writers justly describe this castle as the eighth wonder of the world. The King of France has a respectable palace, but it is a fool in comparison with this one."

"And that other tower over there near it, on the right?"

"That is St. Yan. There is a gallery from the castle to it. I had a vision in that church, for I remained behind once after vespers; I heard a voice from the arches, crying, 'Zagloba, there will be war with such a son the Swedish king, and great calamities will follow.' I was running with all my breath to the king to tell him what I had heard, when the primate caught me by the neck with his crosier. 'Don't tell follies,' said he; 'you were drunk!' That other church just at the side belongs to the Jesuit college; the third tower at a distance is the law courts; the fourth at the right is the marshals, and that green roof is the Dominicans. I could not name them all, even if I could wield my tongue as well as I do my sabre."

"It must be that there is not another such city in the world," said one of the soldiers.

"That is why all nations envy us!" answered Zagloba.

"And that wonderful pile on the left of the castle?"

"Behind the Bernardines?"

"Yes."

"That is the Radzeyovski Palace, formerly the Kazanovski. It is considered the ninth wonder of the world; but there is a plague on it, for in those walls began the misfortune of the Commonwealth."

"How is that?" asked a number of voices.

"When the vice-chancellor Radzeyovski began to dispute and quarrel with his wife, the king took her part. You know, gentlemen, what people said of this; and it is true that the vice-chancellor thought that his wife was in love with the king, and the king with her; then afterward, through hatred, he fled to the Swedes, and war began. To tell the truth, I was in the country at the moment, and did not see the end of the affair, I got it from hearsay; but I know this, that she made sweet eyes, not at the king, but at some one else."

"At whom?"

Zagloba began to twirl his mustaches: "At him to whom all are hurrying like ants to honey; but it does not beseem me to mention his name, for I have always hated boastfulness. Besides, the man has grown old, and from sweeping out the enemy of the country, I am worn as a broom; but once there was no greater beauty and love maker than I. Let Rob Kovalski – "

Here Zagloba saw that by no means could Roh remember those times; therefore he waved his hand, and said, —

"But what does he know of this affair?"

Then he pointed out the palaces of Ossolinski and Konyetspolski, palaces which were in size almost equal to the Radzeyovski; finally the splendid villa Regia; and then the sun went down, and the darkness of night began to fill the air.

The thunder of guns was heard on the walls of Warsaw, and trumpets were sounded a considerable time and prolonged, in sign that the enemy was approaching.

Sapyeha also announced his coming by firing from muskets, to give courage to the inhabitants; and that night he began to transport his army across the Vistula. First the Lauda squadron passed; second the squadron of Pan Kotvich; then Kmita's Tartars; then Vankovich's squadron; after that, eight thousand men. In this way the Swedes, with their accumulated plunder, were surrounded and deprived of communication; but nothing remained to Sapyeha except to wait till Charnyetski from one side, and from the other Yan Kazimir with the hetmans of the kingdom, marched up, and meanwhile to see that no reinforcements stole through to the city.

The first news came from Charnyetski, but not overfavorable, for he reported that his troops and horses were so exhausted that at that moment he could not take part in the siege. From the time of the battle of Varka, they were under fire day after day; and from the first months of the year they had fought twenty-one great battles with the Swedes, not counting the engagements of scouting-parties and the attacks on smaller detachments. He had not obtained infantry in Pomerania, and had not been able to advance to Dantzig; he promised, at most, to hold in check with the rest of his forces that Swedish army which under the brother of the king, Radzivill, and Douglas, was stationed at Narev, and apparently was preparing to come to the aid of the besieged.

The Swedes prepared for defence with the bravery and skill peculiar to them. They burned Praga before the arrival of Sapyeha; they had begun already to throw bombs into all the suburbs, such as the Cracow and the Novy-Sviat, and on the other side against the church of St. Yerzy and the Virgin Mary. Then houses, great buildings, and churches flamed up. In the daytime smoke rolled over the city like clouds, thick and dark. At night those clouds became red, and bundles of sparks burst forth from them toward the sky. Outside the walls, crowds of people were wandering, without roofs over their heads, without bread; women surrounded Sapyeha's camp, and cried for charity; people were seen as thin as pincers from hunger; children were dying for want of food, in the arms of emaciated mothers; the suburbs were turned into a vale of tears and misery.

Sapyeha, having neither infantry nor cannon, waited and waited for the coming of the king. Meanwhile he aided the poor, sending them in groups to the less injured neighborhoods, in which they might survive in some way. He was troubled not a little when he foresaw the difficulties of the siege, for the skilled engineers of Sweden had turned Warsaw into a strong fortress. Behind the walls were three thousand trained soldiers, led by able and experienced generals; on the whole, the Swedes passed as masters in besieging and defending great fortresses. To solace this trouble, Sapyeha arranged daily feasts, during which the goblets circled freely; for that worthy citizen and uncommon warrior had this failing, – he loved company and the clatter of glasses above all things, and therefore neglected frequently service for pleasure.

His diligence in the daytime he balanced by negligence at night. Till sunset he worked faithfully, sent out scouts, despatched letters, inspected pickets himself, examined the informants brought in; but with the first star even fiddles were heard in his quarters. And when once he felt joyous he permitted everything, sent for officers even though on guard or appointed to scouting expeditions, and was angry if any one failed to appear, since for him there was no feast without a throng. In the morning Zagloba reproached him seriously, but in the night the servants bore Zagloba himself without consciousness to Volodyovski's quarters.

"Sapyeha would make a saint fall," he explained next day to his friends; "and what must happen to me, who have been always fond of sport? Besides, he has some kind of special passion to force goblets on me, and I, not wishing to seem rude, yield to his pressing; this I do to avoid offending the host. But I have made a vow that at the coming Advent I shall have my back well covered with discipline (stripes), for I understand myself that this yielding cannot remain without penance; but now I have to keep on good terms with him, out of fear that I might fall into worse company and indulge myself altogether."

There were officers who without the eye of the hetman accomplished their service; but some neglected it terribly in the evenings, as ordinary soldiers do when they feel no iron hand above them.

The enemy was not slow to take advantage of this. Two days before the coming of the king and the hetmans, Sapyeha arranged his most splendid feast, for he was rejoiced that all the troops were coming, and that the siege would begin in earnest. All the best known officers were invited; the hetman, ever in search of an opportunity, announced that that feast would be in honor of the king. To Kmita, Zagloba, Pan Yan, Pan Stanislav, and Kharlamp were sent special orders to come without fail, for the hetman wished to honor them particularly for their great services. Pan Andrei had just mounted his horse to go with a party, so that the orderly found the Tartars outside the gate.

"You cannot show the hetman disrespect, and return rudeness for kindness," said the officer.

Kmita dismounted and went to ask advice of his comrades.

"This is dreadfully awkward for me," said he. "I have heard that a considerable body of cavalry has appeared near Babitsi. The hetman himself commanded me to learn absolutely who they are, and now he asks me to the feast. What must I do?"