The Deluge. Vol. 2

"Take them alive!" cried Kmita.

The biting of steel ceased. The Tartars were commanded to bind the enemy, and with the skill peculiar to them they did this in a twinkle; then the squadrons pushed back hastily from the cannon-fire. The colonels marched toward the sheds, – the Lauda men in advance, Vankovich in the rear, and Kmita, with the prisoners, in the centre, all in perfect readiness to repulse attack should it come. Some of the Tartars led prisoners on leashes; others of them led captured horses. Kmita, when he came near the sheds, looked carefully into the faces of the prisoners to see if Boguslav was among them; for though one of them had sworn under a sword-point that the prince was not in the detachment, still Kmita thought that perhaps they were hiding him purposely. Then some voice from under the stirrup of a Tartar cried to him, —

"Pan Kmita! Colonel! Rescue an acquaintance! Give command to free me from the rope on parole."

"Hassling!" cried Kmita.

Hassling was a Scot, formerly an officer in the cavalry of the voevoda of Vilna, whom Kmita knew in Kyedani, and in his time loved much.

"Let the prisoner go free!" cried he to the Tartar, "and down from the horse yourself!"

The Tartar sprang from the saddle as if the wind had carried him off, for he knew the danger of loitering when the "bagadyr" commanded.

Hassling, groaning, climbed into the Tartar's lofty saddle. Kmita then caught him above the palm, and pressing his hand as if he wished to crush it, began to ask insistently, —

"Whence do you come? Tell me quickly, whence do you come? For God's sake, tell quickly!"

"From Taurogi," answered the officer.

Kmita pressed him still more.

"But – Panna Billevich – is she there?"

"She is."

Pan Andrei spoke with still greater difficulty, for he pressed his teeth still more closely.

"And – what has the prince done with her?"

"He has not succeeded in doing anything."

Silence followed; after a while Kmita removed his lynxskin cap, drew his hand over his forehead and said, —

"I was struck in the battle; blood is leaving me, and I have grown weak."

CHAPTER XXXVIII

The sortie had attained its object only in part; though Boguslav's division had entered the city, the sortie itself had not done great things. It is true that Pan Kotvich's squadron and Oskyerko's dragoons had suffered seriously; but the Swedes too had strewn the field with many corpses, and one regiment of infantry, which Volodyovski and Vankovich had struck, was almost destroyed. The Lithuanians boasted that they had inflicted greater loss on the enemy than they had endured themselves. Pan Sapyeha alone suffered internally, because a new "confusion" had met him from which his fame might be seriously affected. The colonels attached to the hetman comforted him as well as they could; and to tell the truth this lesson was useful, for henceforward he had no more such wild banquets, and if there was some pleasure the greatest watchfulness was observed during the time of its continuance. The Swedes were caught the day after. Supposing that the hetman would not expect a repetition of the sortie so soon, they came outside the walls again; but driven from their ground and leaving a number of dead, they returned.

Meanwhile they were examining Hassling in the hetman's quarters; this made Pan Andrei so impatient that he almost sprang out of his skin, for he wished to have the Scot to himself at the earliest, and talk with him touching Taurogi. He prowled about the quarters all day, went in every little while, listened to the statements, and sprang up whenever Boguslav's name was mentioned in the question.

But in the evening he received an order to go on a scouting expedition. He said nothing, only set his teeth; for he had changed greatly already, and had learned to defer private affairs for public service. But he pushed the Tartars terribly during the expedition, burst out in anger at the least cause, and struck with his baton till the bones cracked. They said one to another that the "bagadyr" was mad, and marched silently, as silently as cowards, looking only to the eyes of the leader and guessing his thoughts on the wing.

On returning he found Hassling in his quarters, but so ill that he could not speak, for his capture had affected him so cruelly that after the additional torture of a whole day's inquisition he had a fever, and did not understand what was said to him. Kmita therefore was forced to be satisfied with what Zagloba told of Hassling's statements; but they touched only public, not private affairs. Of Boguslav the young officer said only this, – that after his return from the expedition to Podlyasye and the defeat at Yanov he had become terribly ill from rage and melancholy; he fell into a fever, but as soon as he had recovered somewhat, he moved with his troops to Pomerania, whither Steinbock and the elector invited him most earnestly.

"But where is he now?" asked Kmita.

"According to what Hassling tells me, and he has no reason to lie, he is with the king's brother, at the fortified camp on the Narev and the Bug, where Boguslav is commanding a whole cavalry division," answered Zagloba.

"Ha! and they think to come here with succor to the besieged. We shall meet, as God is in heaven, even if I had to go to him in disguise."

"Do not grow angry for nothing! To Warsaw they would be glad to come with succor, but they cannot, for Charnyetski has placed himself in their way. Having neither infantry nor cannon, he cannot attack their camp, and they are afraid to go out against him, for they know that their soldiers could not withstand his in the field, and they know too that if they went out, they could not shield themselves with the river. If the king himself were there he would give battle, for under his command the soldiers fight better, being confident that he is a great warrior; but neither Douglas, nor the king's brother, nor Prince Boguslav, though all three are daring men, would venture against Charnyetski."

"But where is the king?"

"He has gone to Prussia. The king does not believe that we are before Warsaw already, and that we shall capture Wittemberg. But whether he believes or not, he had to go for two reasons, – first, because he must win over the elector, even at the price of all Great Poland; second, because the army, which he led out of the sack, is of no use until it has rested. Toil, watching, and continual alarms have so gnawed it that the soldiers are not able to hold muskets in their hands; and still they are the choicest regiments in the whole army, which through all the German and Danish regions have won famous victories."

Further conversation was interrupted by the coming of Volodyovski.

"How is Hassling?" asked he on the threshold.

"He is sick and imagines every folly," answered Kmita.

"And you, my dear Michael, what do you want of Hassling?" asked Zagloba.

"Just as if you do not know!"

"I could not know that it is a question with you of that cherry-tree which Prince Boguslav has planted in his garden. He is a diligent gardener; he does not need to wait a year for fruit."

"I wish you were killed for such jokes!" cried the little knight.

"Look at him, tell him the most innocent thing, and immediately his mustaches are quivering like the horns of a mad grasshopper. In what am I to blame? Seek vengeance on Boguslav, not on me."

"God grant me to seek and to find!"

"Just now Babinich has said the same! Before long I see that he will raise the whole army against the prince; but Boguslav is taking good care of himself, and without my stratagems you will not be able to succeed."

Here both young men sprang to their feet and asked, —

"Have you any stratagems?"

"But do you think it is as easy to take a stratagem out of the head as a sabre out of the sheath? If Boguslav were here, surely I should find more than one; but at that distance, not only a stratagem, but a cannon will not strike. Pan Andrei, give orders to bring me a goblet of mead, for it is hot here to-day."

"I'll give you a keg of it if you will invent something."

"First, why do you stand over this Hassling like an executioner? He is not the only man captured; you can ask others."

"I have already tortured others, but they are common soldiers; they know nothing, but he, as an officer, was at the court," answered Kmita.

"That is a reason!" answered Zagloba. "I must talk with him too; from what he tells me of the person and ways of Prince Boguslav, stratagems may be important. Now the main thing is to finish the siege soon, for afterward we shall move surely against that army on the Narev. But somehow our gracious lord and the hetmans are a long time invisible."

"How so?" asked Volodyovski. "I have returned this minute from the hetman, who has just received news that the king will take up position here this evening with the auxiliary divisions, and the hetmans with cavalry will come to-morrow. They are advancing from Sokal itself, resting but little, making forced marches. Besides, it has been known for two days that they are almost in sight."

"Are they bringing many troops?"

"Nearly five times as many as Sapyeha has, infantry Russian and Hungarian, very excellent; six thousand Tartars under Suba Gazi, but probably it is impossible to let them out for even a day, for they are very self-willed and plunder all around."

"Better give them to Pan Andrei to lead," said Zagloba.