The king’s party arrived at Jivyets late in the evening, and paid
almost no attention to the place, which was terrified by the recent
attack of the Swedish detachment. The king did not go to the castle,
which had been ravaged by the enemy and burned in part, but stopped at
the priest’s house. Kmita spread the news that the party was escorting
the ambassador of the emperor, who was going from Silesia to Cracow.
Next morning they held on toward Vadovitsi, and then turned
considerably to one side toward Suha. From this place they were to pass
through Kjechoni to Yordanovo, thence to Novy Targ, and if it appeared
that there were no Swedish parties near Chorshtyn to go to Chorshtyn;
if there were, they were to turn toward Hungary and advance on
Hungarian soil to Lyubovlya. The king hoped, too, that the marshal of
the kingdom, who disposed of forces so considerable that no reigning
prince had so many, would make the road safe and hasten forth to meet
his sovereign. Only this could prevent, that the marshal knew not which
road the king would take; but among the mountaineers there was no lack
of trusty men ready to bear word to the marshal. There was no need even
of confiding the secret to them, for they went willingly when told that
it was a question of serving the king. These people, though poor and
half wild, tilling little or not at all an ungrateful soil, living by
their herds, pious, and hating heretics, were, in truth, given heart
and soul to the sovereign. They were the first to seize their axes and
move from the mountains when news of the taking of Cracow spread
through the country, and especially when news came of the siege of
Chenstohova, to which pious women were accustomed to go on pilgrimages.
General Douglas, a well-known warrior, furnished with cannon and
muskets, scattered them, it is true, on the plains, to which they were
not accustomed; but the Swedes only with the greatest caution entered
their special districts, in which it was not easy to reach them, and
easy to suffer disaster,—so that some smaller divisions, having
needlessly entered this labyrinth of mountains, were lost.
And now news of the king’s passage with an army had already done its
own, for all had sprung up as one man to defend him and accompany him
with their axes, even to the end of the world. Yan Kazimir might, if he
had only disclosed who he was, have surrounded himself in a short time
with thousands of half-wild “householders;” but he thought justly that
in such an event the news would be carried about everywhere by all the
whirlwinds through the whole region, and that the Swedes might send out
numerous troops to meet him, therefore he chose to travel unknown even
to the mountaineers.
But in all places trusty guides were found, to whom it was enough to
say that they were conducting bishops and lords who desired to preserve
themselves from Swedish hands. They were led, therefore, among snows,
cliffs, and whirlwinds, and over places so inaccessible that you would
have said: “A bird cannot fly through them.”
More than once the king and the dignitaries had clouds below them, and
when there were not clouds their glances passed over a shoreless
expanse, covered with white snows, an expanse seemingly as wide as the
whole country was wide; more than once they entered mountain throats,
almost dark, covered with snow, in which perhaps only a wild beast
might have its lair. But they avoided places accessible to the enemy,
shortening the road; and it happened that a settlement, at which they
expected to arrive in half a day, appeared suddenly under their feet,
and in it they awaited rest and hospitality, though in a smoky hut and
a sooty room.
The king was in continual good humor; he gave courage to others to
endure the excessive toil, and he guaranteed that by such roads they
would surely reach Lyubovlya as safely as unexpectedly.
“The marshal does not expect that we shall fall on his shoulders!”
repeated the king, frequently.
“What was the return of Xenophon to our journey among the clouds?”
asked the nuncio.
“The higher we rise, the lower will Swedish fortune fall,” answered the
king.
They arrived at Novy Targ. It seemed that all danger was passed; still
the mountaineers declared that Swedish troops were moving about near
Chorshtyn and in the neighborhood. The king supposed that they might be
the marshal’s German cavalry, of which he had two regiments, or they
might be his own dragoons sent in advance and mistaken for the enemy’s
scouts. Since in Chorshtyn the bishop of Cracow had a garrison,
opinions were divided in the royal party. Some wished to go by the road
to Chorshtyn, and then pass along the boundary to Spij; others advised
to turn straight to Hungary, which came up in wedge-form to Novy Targ,
and go over heights and through passes, taking guides everywhere who
knew the most dangerous places.
This last opinion prevailed, for in that way meeting with the Swedes
became almost impossible; and besides this “eagle” road over the
precipices and through the clouds gave pleasure to the king.
They passed then from Novy Targ somewhat to the south and west, on the
right hand of the Byaly Dunayets. The road at first lay through a
region rather open and spacious, but as they advanced the mountains
began to run together and the valleys to contract. They went along
roads over which horses could barely advance. At times the riders had
to dismount and lead; and more than once the beasts resisted, pointing
their ears and stretching their distended and steaming nostrils forward
toward precipices, from the depths of which death seemed to gaze
upward.
The mountaineers, accustomed to precipices, frequently considered roads
good on which the heads of unaccustomed men turned and their ears rang.
At last they entered a kind of rocky chasm long, straight, and so
narrow that three men could barely ride abreast in it. Two cliffs
bounded it on the right side and the left. At places however the edges
inclined, forming slopes less steep, covered with piles of snow
bordered on the edges with dark pine-trees. Winds blew away the snow
immediately from the bottom of the pass, and the hoofs of horses
gritted everywhere on a stony road. But at that moment the wind was not
blowing, and such silence reigned that there was a ringing in the ears.
Above where between the woody edges a blue belt of sky was visible,
black flocks of birds flew past from time to time, shaking their wings
and screaming.
The king’s party halted for rest. Clouds of steam rose from the horses,
and the men too were tired.
“Is this Poland or Hungary?” inquired, after a time, the king of a
guide.
“This is Poland.”
“But why do we not turn directly to Hungary?”
“Because it is impossible. At some distance this pass turns, beyond the
turn is a cliff, beyond that we come out on the high-road, turn, then
go through one more pass, and there the Hungarian country begins.”
“Then I see it would have been better to go by the highway at first,”
said the king.
“Quiet!” cried the mountaineer, quickly. And springing to the cliff he
put his ear to it.
All fixed their eyes on him; his face changed in a moment, and he said:
“Beyond the turn troops are coming from the water-fall! For God’s sake!
Are they not Swedes?”
“Where? How? What?” men began to ask on every side. “We hear nothing.”
“No, for snow is lying on the sides. By God’s wounds, they are near!
they will be here straightway!”
“Maybe they are the marshal’s troops,” said the king.
In one moment Kmita urged his horse forward. “I will go and see!” said
he.
The Kyemliches moved that instant after him, like hunting-dogs in a
chase; but barely had they stirred from their places when the turn of
the pass, about a hundred yards distant, was made black by men and
horses. Kmita looked at them, and the soul quivered within him from
terror.
Swedes were advancing.
They were so near that it was impossible to retreat, especially since
the king’s party had wearied horses. It only remained to break through,
to perish, or to go into captivity. The unterrified king understood
this in a flash; therefore he seized the hilt of his sword.
“Cover the king and retreat!” cried Kmita.
Tyzenhauz with twenty men pushed forward in the twinkle of an eye; but
Kmita instead of joining them moved on at a sharp trot against the
Swedes.
He wore the Swedish dress, the same in which he disguised himself when
going out from the cloister. Seeing a horseman coming toward them in
such a dress, the Swedes thought perhaps this was some party of their
own belonging to the King of Sweden; they did not hasten their pace,
but the captain commanding pushed out beyond the first three.
“What people are you?” asked he in Swedish, looking at the threatening
and pale face of the young man approaching.
Kmita rode up to him so closely that their knees almost touched, and
without speaking a word fired from a pistol directly into his ear.
A shout of terror was rent from the breasts of the Swedish cavalry; but
still louder thundered the voice of Pan Andrei, “Strike!”
And like a rock torn from a cliff rolling down, crushing everything in
its course, so did he fall on the first rank, bearing death and
destruction. The two young Kyemliches, like two bears, sprang after him
into the whirl. The clatter of sabres on mail and helmets was heard,
like the sound of hammers, and was followed straightway by outcries and
groans.
It seemed at the first moment to the astonished Swedes that three
giants had fallen upon them in that wild mountain pass. The first three
pushed back confused in the presence of the terrible man, and when the
succeeding ones had extricated themselves from behind the bend of the
pass, those in the rear were thrown back and confused. The horses fell
to biting and kicking. The soldiers in the remoter ranks were not able
to shoot, nor come to the assistance of those in front, who perished
without aid under the blows of the three giants. In vain did they fall,
in vain did they present their weapon points; here sabres were
breaking, there men and horses fell. Kmita urged his horse till his
hoofs were hanging above the heads of the steeds of his opponents, he
was raging himself, cutting and thrusting. The blood rushed to his
face, and from his eyes fire flashed. All thoughts were quenched in him
save one,—he might perish, but he must detain the Swedes. That thought
turned in him to a species of wild ecstasy; therefore his powers were
trebled, his movements became like those of a leopard, mad, and swift
as lightning. With blows of his sabre, which were blows beyond human,
he crushed men as a thunderbolt crushes young trees; the twin
Kyemliches followed, and the old man, standing a trifle in the rear,
thrust his rapier out every moment between his sons, as a serpent
thrusts out its bloody tongue.
Meanwhile around the king there rose confusion. The nuncio, as at
Jivyets, seized the reins of his horse, and on the other side the
bishop of Cracow pulled back the steed with all his force; but the king
spurred him till he stood on his hind legs.
“Let me go!” cried the king. “As God lives! We shall pass through the
enemy!”
“My Lord, think of the country!” cried the bishop of Cracow.
The king was unable to tear himself from their hands, especially since
young Tyzenhauz with all his men closed the road. Tyzenhauz did not go
to help Kmita; he sacrificed him, he wanted only to save the king.
“By the passion of our Lord!” cried he, in despair, “those men will
perish immediately! Gracious Lord, save yourself while there is time! I
will hold them here yet awhile!”
But the stubbornness of the king when once roused reckoned with nothing
and no man. Yan Kazimir spurred his horse still more violently, and
instead of retreating pushed forward.
But time passed, and each moment might bring with it final destruction.
“I will die on my own soil! Let me go!” cried the king.
Fortunately, against Kmita and the Kyemliches, by reason of the
narrowness of the pass, only a small number of men could act at once,
consequently they were able to hold out long. But gradually even their
powers began to be exhausted. A number of times the rapiers of the
Swedes had struck Kmita’s body, and his blood began to flow. His eyes
were veiled as it were by a mist. The breath halted in his breast. He
felt the approach of death; therefore he wanted only to sell his life
dearly. “Even one more!” repeated he to himself, and he sent down his
steel blade on the head or the shoulder of the nearest horseman, and
again he turned to another; but evidently the Swedes felt ashamed,
after the first moment of confusion and fear, that four men were able
to detain them so long, and they crowded forward with fury; soon the
very weight of men and horses drove back the four men, and each moment
more swiftly and strongly.
With that Kmita’s horse fell, and the torrent covered the rider.
The Kyemliches struggled still for a time, like swimmers who seeing
that they are drowning make efforts to keep their heads above the whirl
of the sea, but soon they also fell. Then the Swedes moved on like a
whirlwind toward the party of the king.
Tyzenhauz with his men sprang against them, and struck them in such
fashion that the sound was heard through the mountains.
But what could that handful of men, led by Tyzenhauz, do against a
detachment of nearly three hundred strong?
There was no doubt that for the king and his party the fatal hour of
death or captivity must come.
Yan Kazimir, preferring evidently the first to the second, freed
finally the reins from the hands of the bishops, and pushed forward
quickly toward Tyzenhauz. In an instant he halted as if fixed to the
earth.
Something uncommon had happened. To spectators it seemed as though the
mountains themselves were coming to the aid of the rightful king.
Behold on a sudden the edges of the pass quivered as if the earth were
moving from its foundations, as if the pines on the mountain desired to
take part in the battle; and logs of wood, blocks of snow and ice,
stones, fragments of cliff’s, began to roll down with a terrible crash
and roar on the ranks of the Swedes crowded in the pass. At the same
time an unearthly howl was heard on each side of the narrow place.
Below in the ranks began seething which passed human belief. It seemed
to the Swedes that the mountains were falling and covering them. Shouts
rose, the lamentations of crushed men, despairing cries for assistance,
the whining of horses, the bite and terrible sound of fragments of
cliffs on armor.
At last men and horses formed one mass quivering convulsively, crushed,
groaning, despairing, and dreadful. But the stones and pieces of
cliff’s ground them continually, rolling without mercy on the now
formless masses, the bodies of horses and men.
“The mountaineers! the mountaineers!” shouted men in the retinue of the
king.
“With axes at the dog-brothers!” called voices from the mountain.
And that very moment from both rocky edges appeared long-haired heads,
covered with round fur caps, and after them came out bodies, and
several hundred strange forms began to let themselves down on the
slopes of the snow.
Dark and white rags floating above their shoulders gave them the
appearance of some kind of awful birds of prey. They pushed down in the
twinkle of an eye; the sound of their axes emphasized their wild
ominous shouting and the groans of the Swedes.
The king himself tried to restrain the slaughter; some horsemen, still
living, threw themselves on their knees, and raising their defenceless
hands, begged for their lives. Nothing availed, nothing could stay the
vengeful axes. A quarter of an hour later there was not one man living
among the Swedes in the pass.
After that the bloody mountaineers began to hurry toward the escort of
the king.
The nuncio looked with astonishment on those people, strange to him,
large, sturdy, covered partly with sheepskin, sprinkled with blood, and
shaking their still steaming axes.
But at sight of the bishops they uncovered their heads. Many of them
fell on their knees in the snow.
The bishop of Cracow raising his tearful face toward heaven said,
“Behold the assistance of God, behold Providence, which watches over
the majesty of the king.” Then turning to the mountaineers, he asked,
“Men, who are you?”
“We are of this place,” answered voices from the crowd.
“Do you know whom you have come to assist? This is your king and your
lord, whom you have saved.”
At these words a shout rose in the crowd. “The king! the king! Jesus,
Mary! the king!” And the joyful mountaineers began to throng and crowd
around Yan Kazimir. With weeping they fell to him from every side; with
weeping, they kissed his feet, his stirrups, even the hoofs of his
horse. Such excitement reigned, such shouting, such weeping that the
bishops from fear for the king’s person were forced to restrain the
excessive enthusiasm.
And the king was in the midst of a faithful people, like a shepherd
among sheep, and great tears were flowing down his face. Then his
countenance became bright, as if some sudden change had taken place in
his soul, as if a new, great thought from heaven by birth had flashed
into his mind, and he indicated with his hand that he wished to speak;
and when there was silence he said with a voice so loud that the whole
multitude heard him,—
“O God, Thou who hast saved me by the hands of simple people, I swear
by the suffering and death of Thy Son to be a father to them from this
moment forward.”
“Amen!” responded the bishops.
For a certain time a solemn silence reigned, then a new burst of joy.
They inquired of the mountaineers whence they had come into the passes,
and in what way they had appeared to rescue the king. It turned out
that considerable parties of Swedes had been wandering about Chorshtyn,
and, not capturing the castle itself, they seemed to seek some one and
to wait. The mountaineers too had heard of a battle which those parties
had delivered against troops among whom it was said that the king
himself was advancing. Then they determined to push the Swedes into an
ambush, and sending to them deceitful guides, they lured them into the
pass.
“We saw,” said the mountaineers, “how those four horsemen attacked
those dogs; we wanted to assist the four horsemen, but were afraid to
fall upon the dog-brothers too soon!”
Here the king seized his head. “Mother of Thy only Son!” cried he,
“find Babinich for me! Let us give him at least a funeral! And he is
the man who was considered a traitor, the one who first shed his own
blood for us.”
“It was I who accused him, Gracious Lord!” said Tyzenhauz.
“Find him, find him!” cried the king. “I will not leave here till I
look upon his face and put my blessing on him.”
The soldiers and the mountaineers sprang to the place of the first
struggle, and soon they removed from the pile of dead horses and men
Pan Andrei. His face was pale, all bespattered with blood, which was
hanging in large stiffened drops on his mustaches; his eyes were
closed; his armor was bent from the blows of swords and horses’ hoofs.
But that armor had saved him from being crushed, and to the soldier who
raised him it seemed as though he heard a low groan.
“As God is true, he is alive!” cried he.
“Remove his armor,” called others.
They cut the straps quickly. Kmita breathed more deeply.
“He is breathing, he is breathing! He is alive!” repeated a number of
voices.
But he lay a certain time motionless; then he opened his eyes. At that
time one of the soldiers poured a little gorailka into his mouth;
others raised him by the armpits.
Now the king, to whose hearing the cry repeated by several voices had
come, rode up in haste. The soldiers drew into his presence Pan Andrei,
who was hanging on them and slipping from their hands to the ground.
Still, at sight of the king consciousness returned to him for a moment,
a smile almost childlike lighted his face, and his pale lips whispered
clearly,—
“My lord, my king, is alive—is free.” And tears shone on his eyelashes.
“Babinich, Babinich! with what can I reward you?” cried the king.
“I am not Babinich; I am Kmita!” whispered the knight.
When he had said this he hung like a corpse in the arms of the
soldiers.