After that sortie the night was passed in desultory firing; at
daylight it was announced that a number of Turks were standing near
the castle, waiting till men were sent out to negotiate. Happen
what might, it was needful to know what they wanted; therefore Pan
Makovetski and Pan Myslishevski were appointed at the council to go
out to the Pagans.
A little later Pan Kazimir Humyetski joined them, and they went
forth. There were three Turks,--Muhtar Bey, Salomi, the pasha of
Rushchuk, and the third Kozra, an interpreter. The meeting took
place under the open sky outside the gate of the castle. The Turks,
at sight of the envoys, began to bow, putting their finger-tips
to their hearts, mouths, and foreheads; the Poles greeted them
politely, asking why they had come. To this Salomi answered,--
“Dear men! a great wrong has been done to our lord, over which
all who love justice must weep; and for which He who was before
the ages will punish you, if you do not correct it straightway.
Behold, you sent out of your own will Yuritsa, who beat with the
forehead to our vizir and begged him for a cessation of arms. When
we, trusting in your virtue, went out of the trenches, you began to
fire at us from cannon, and rushing out from behind walls, covered
the road with corpses as far as the tents of the Padishah; which
proceeding cannot remain without punishment, unless you surrender
at once the castles and the town, and show great regret and
repentance.”
To this Makovetski gave answer,--
“Yuritsa is a dog, who exceeded his instructions, for he ordered
his attendant to hang out a white flag, for which he will be
judged. The bishop on his own behalf inquired privately if an
armistice might be arranged; but you did not cease to fire in time
of sending those letters. I myself am a witness of that, for broken
stones wounded me in the mouth; wherefore you have not the right to
ask us to cease firing. If you come now with an armistice ready,
it is well; if not, tell your lord, dear men, that we will defend
the walls and the town as before, until we perish, or what is more
certain, till you perish, in these rocks. We have nothing further
to give you, except wishes that God may increase your days, and
permit you to live to old age.”
After this conversation the envoys separated straightway. The Turks
returned to the vizir; Makovetski, Humyetski, and Myslishevski to
the castle. They were covered with questions as to how they had
sent off the envoys. They related the Turkish declaration.
“Do not receive it, dear brothers,” said Kazimir Humyetski. “In
brief, these dogs wish that we should give up the keys of the town
before evening.”
To this many voices gave answer, repeating the favorite
expression,--
“That Pagan dog will not grow fat with us. We will not surrender;
we will drive him away in confusion. We do not want him.”
After such a decision, all separated; and firing began at once. The
Turks had succeeded already in putting many heavy guns in position;
and their balls, passing the “breastworks,” began to fall into the
town. Cannoneers in the town and the castles worked in the sweat
of their foreheads the rest of the day and all night. When any one
fell, there was no man to take his place, there was a lack also
of men to carry balls and powder. Only before daybreak did the
uproar cease somewhat. But barely was the day growing gray in the
east, and the rosy gold-edged belt of dawn appearing, when in both
castles the alarm was sounded. Whoso was sleeping sprang to his
feet; drowsy throngs came out on the streets, listening carefully.
“They are preparing for an assault,” said some to others, pointing
to the side of the castle. “But is Pan Volodyovski there?” asked
alarmed voices. “He is, he is!” answered others.
In the castles they rang the chapel bells, and rattling of drums
was beard on all sides. In the half-light, half-darkness of
morning, when the town was comparatively quiet, those voices
seemed mysterious and solemn. At that moment the Turks played
the “kindya;” one band gave the sounds to another, and they ran
in that way, like an echo, through the whole immense tabor. The
Pagan swarms began to move around the tents. At the rising day the
towering intrenchments, ditches, and approaches came out of the
darkness, stretching in a long line at the side of the castle.
The heavy Turkish guns roared at once along its whole length; the
cliffs of the Smotrych roared back in thundering echo; and the
noise was as awful and terrible as if all the thunders in the
storehouse of heaven had flashed and shot down together, bringing
with them the dome of clouds to the earth.
That was a battle of artillery. The town and the castles gave
mighty answers. Soon smoke veiled the sun and the light; the
Turkish works were invisible. Kamenyets was hidden; only one
gray enormous cloud was to be seen, filled in the interior with
lightning, with thunder and roaring. But the Turkish guns carried
farther than those of the town. Soon death began to cut people
down in Kamenyets. A number of cannon were dismounted. In service
at the arquebuses, two or three men fell at a time. A Franciscan
Father, who was blessing the guns, had his nose and part of his lip
carried off by a wedge from under a cannon; two very brave Jews who
assisted in working that cannon were killed.
But the Turkish guns struck mainly at the intrenchment of the town.
Pan Kazimir Humyetski sat there like a salamander, in the greatest
fire and smoke: one half of his company had fallen; nearly all
of those who remained were wounded. He himself lost speech and
hearing; but with the aid of the Polish mayor he forced the enemy’s
battery to silence, at least until new guns were brought to replace
the old ones.
A day passed, a second, a third; and that dreadful “colloquium”
of cannon did not cease for an instant. The Turks changed gunners
four times a day; but in the town the very same men had to work
all the time without sleep, almost without food, stifled from
smoke; many were wounded from broken stones and fragments of cannon
carriages. The soldiers endured; but the hearts began to weaken in
the inhabitants. It was necessary at last to drive them with clubs
to the cannon, where they fell thickly. Happily, in the evening of
the third day and through the night following, from Thursday till
Friday, the main cannonading was turned on the castles.
They were both covered, but especially the old one, with bombs from
great mortars, which, however, “harmed little, since in darkness
each bomb was discernible, and a man could avoid it.” But toward
evening, when such weariness seized men that they fell off their
feet from drowsiness, they perished often enough.
The little knight, Ketling, Myslishevski, and Kvasibrotski answered
the Turkish fire from the castles. The starosta looked in at them
repeatedly, and advanced amid a hail of bullets, anxious, but
regardless of danger.
Toward evening, however, when the fire had increased still more,
Pan Pototski approached Pan Michael.
“Gracious Colonel,” said he, “we shall not hold out.”
“While they confine themselves to firing we shall hold out,”
answered the little knight; “but they will blow us out of here with
mines, for they are making them.”
“Are they really mining?” asked the starosta, in alarm.
“Seventy cannon are playing, and their thunder is almost unceasing;
still, there are moments of quiet. When such a moment comes, put
down your ear carefully and listen.”
At that time it was not needful to wait long, especially as an
accident came to their aid. One of the Turkish siege-guns burst;
that caused a certain disorder. They sent from other intrenchments
to inquire what had happened, and there was a lull in cannonading.
Pan Michael and the starosta approached the very end of one of the
projections of the castle, and began to listen. After a certain
time their ears caught clearly enough the resonant sound of hammers
in the cliff.
“They are pounding,” said the starosta.
“They are pounding,” said the little knight.
Then they were silent. Great alarm appeared on the face of the
starosta; he raised his hands and pressed his temples. Seeing this,
Pan Michael said,--
“This is a usual thing in all sieges. At Zbaraj they were digging
under us night and day.”
The starosta raised his hand: “What did Prince Yeremi do?”
“He withdrew from intrenchments of wide circuit into narrower ones.”
“But what should we do?”
“We should take the guns, and with them all that is movable, and
transfer them to the old castle; for the old one is founded on
rocks that the Turks cannot blow up with mines. I have thought
always that the new castle would serve merely for the first
resistance; after that we must blow it up with powder, and the real
defence will begin in the old one.”
A moment of silence followed; and the starosta bent his anxious
head again.
“But if we have to withdraw from the old castle, where shall we
go?” asked he, with a broken voice.
At that, the little knight straightened himself, and pointed with
his finger to the earth: “I shall go there.”
At that moment the guns roared again, and a whole flock of bombs
began to fly to the castle; but as darkness was in the world, they
could be seen perfectly. Pan Michael took leave of the general,
and went along the walls. Going from one battery to another, he
encouraged men everywhere, gave advice; at last, meeting with
Ketling, he said,--
“Well, how is it?”
Ketling smiled pleasantly.
“It is clear as day from the bombs,” said he, pressing the little
knight’s hand. “They do not spare fire on us.”
“A good gun of theirs burst. Did you burst it?”
“I did.”
“I am terribly sleepy.”
“And I too, but there is no time.”
“Ai,” said Pan Michael; “and the little wives must be frightened;
at thought of that, sleep goes away.”
“They are praying for us,” said Ketling, raising his eyes toward
the flying bombs.
“God give them health!” said Pan Michael.
“Among earthly women,” began Ketling, “there are none--”
But he did not finish, for the little knight, turning at that
moment toward the interior of the castle, cried suddenly, in a loud
voice,--
“For God’s sake! Save us! What do I see?”
And he sprang forward.
Ketling looked around with astonishment. At a few paces distant,
in the court of the castle, he saw Basia, with Zagloba and the
Lithuanian, Pyentka.
“To the wall! to the wall!” cried the little knight, dragging them
as quickly as possible to the cover of the battlements. “For God’s
sake!”
“Ha!” said Zagloba, with a broken voice, and panting; “help
yourself here with such a woman, if you please. I remonstrate with
her, saying, ‘You will destroy yourself and me.’ I kneel down,--no
use. Was I to let her go alone? Uh! No help, no help! ‘I will go; I
will go,’ said I. Here she is for you!”
Basia had fear in her face, and her brow was quivering as if before
weeping. But it was not bombs that she feared, nor the whizzing
of balls, nor fragments of stones, but the anger of her husband.
Therefore she clasped her hands like a child fearing punishment,
and exclaimed, with sobbing voice,--
“I could not, Michael dear; as I love you, I could not. Be not
angry, Michael. I cannot stay there when you are perishing here. I
cannot; I cannot!”
He had begun to be angry indeed, and had cried, “Basia, you have no
fear of God!” but sudden tenderness seized him, his voice stuck in
his throat; and only when that dearest bright head was resting on
his breast, did he say,--
“You are my faithful friend until death;” and he embraced her.
But Zagloba, pressing up to the wall, said to Ketling: “And
yours wished to come, but we deceived her, saying that we were
not coming. How could she come in such a condition? A general of
artillery will be born to you. I’m a rogue if it will not be a
general. Well, on the bridge from the town to the castle, the bombs
are falling like peas. I thought I should burst,--from anger, not
from fear. I slipped on sharp pieces of shell, and cut my skin. I
shall not be able to sit down without pain for a week. The nuns
will have to rub me, without minding modesty. Uf! But those rascals
are shooting. May the thunderbolts shoot them away! Pan Pototski
wants to yield the command to me. Give the soldiers a drink, or
they will not hold out. See that bomb! It will fall somewhere near
us. Hide yourself, Basia! As God lives, it will fall near!”
But the bomb fell far away, not near, for it fell on the roof of
the Lutheran church in the old castle. Since the dome was very
strong, ammunition had been carried in there; but this missile
broke the dome, and set fire to the powder. A mighty explosion,
louder than the thunder of cannon, shook the foundations of both
castles. From the battlement, voices of terror were heard. Polish
and Turkish cannon were silent.
Ketling left Zagloba, and Volodyovski left Basia. Both sprang to
the walls with all the strength in their limbs. For a time it was
heard how both gave commands with panting breasts; but the rattle
of drums in the Turkish trenches drowned their commands.
“They will make an assault!” whispered Zagloba.
In fact, the Turks, hearing the explosion, imagined apparently
that both castles were destroyed, the defenders partly buried in
the ruins, and partly seized with fear. With that thought, they
prepared for the storm. Fools! they knew not that only the Lutheran
church had gone into the air. The explosion had produced no other
effect than the shock; not even a gun had fallen from its carriage
in the new castle. But in the intrenchments the rattle of drums
grew more and more hurried. Crowds of janissaries pushed out of the
intrenchments, and ran with quick steps toward the castle. Fires
in the castle and in the Turkish trenches were quenched, it is
true; but the night was clear, and in the light of the moon a dense
mass of white caps were visible, sinking and rising in the rush,
like waves stirred by wind. A number of thousands of janissaries
and several hundred volunteers were running forward with rage and
the hope of certain victory in their hearts; but many of them were
never again to see the minarets of Stambul, the bright waters of
the Bosphorus, and the dark cypresses of the cemeteries.
Pan Michael ran, like a spirit, along the walls. “Don’t fire! Wait
for the word!” cried he, at every gun.
The dragoons were lying flat at the battlements, panting with rage.
Silence followed; there was no sound but that of the quick tread of
the janissaries, like low thunder. The nearer they came, the more
certain they felt of taking both castles at a blow. Many thought
that the remnant of the defenders had withdrawn to the town, and
that the battlements were empty. When they had run to the fosse,
they began to fill it with fascines and bundles of straw, and
filled it in a twinkle. On the walls, the stillness was unbroken.
But when the first ranks stood on the stuff with which the fosse
had been filled, in one of the battlement openings a pistol-shot
was heard; then a shrill voice shouted,--
“Fire!”
At the same time both bulwarks, and the prolongation joining them,
gleamed with a long flash of flame. The thunder of cannon, the
rattle of musketry, and the shouts of the assailants were mingled.
When a dart, hurled by the hand of a strong beater, sinks half its
length in the belly of a bear, he rolls himself into a bundle,
roars, struggles, flounders, straightens, and again rolls himself;
thus precisely did the throng of janissaries and volunteers. Not
one shot of the defenders was wasted. Cannon loaded with grape
laid men flat as a pavement, just as a fierce wind levels standing
grain with one breath. Those who attacked the extension, joining
the bulwarks, found themselves under three fires, and seized with
terror, became a disordered mass in the centre, falling so thickly
that they formed a quivering mound. Ketling poured grapeshot from
two cannon into that group; at last, when they began to flee, he
closed, with a rain of lead and iron, the narrow exit between the
bulwarks.
The attack was repulsed on the whole line, when the janissaries,
deserting the fosse, ran, like madmen, with a howl of terror. They
began in the Turkish intrenchments to hurl flaming tar buckets
and torches, and burn artificial fires, making day of night, so
as to illuminate the road for the fugitives, and to make pursuit
difficult for a sortie.
Meanwhile Pan Michael, seeing that crowd enclosed between the
bulwarks, shouted for his dragoons, and went out against them.
The unfortunate Turks tried once more to escape through the exit;
but Ketling covered them so terribly that he soon blocked the
place with a pile of bodies as high as a wall. It remained to the
living to perish; for the besieged would not take prisoners, hence
they began to defend themselves desperately. Strong men collected
in little groups (two, three, five), and supporting one another
with their shoulders, armed with darts, battle-axes, daggers, and
sabres, cut madly. Fear, terror, certainty of death, despair, was
changed in them into one feeling of rage. The fever of battle
seized them. Some rushed in fury single-handed on the dragoons.
These were borne apart on sabres in a twinkle. That was a struggle
of two furies; for the dragoons, from toil, sleeplessness, and
hunger, were possessed by the anger of beasts against an enemy that
they surpassed in skill in using cold weapons; hence they spread
terrible disaster.
Ketling, wishing on his part to make the scene of struggle more
visible, gave command to ignite tar buckets, and in the light
of them could be seen irrestrainable Mazovians fighting against
janissaries with sabres, dragging them by the heads and beards. The
savage Lusnia raged specially, like a wild bull. At the other wing
Pan Michael himself was fighting; seeing that Basia was looking
at him from the walls, he surpassed himself. As when a venomous
weasel breaks into grain where a swarm of mice are living, and
makes terrible slaughter among them, so did the little knight rush
like a spirit of destruction among the janissaries. His name was
known to the besiegers already, both from previous encounters and
from the narratives of Turks in Hotin. There was a general opinion
that no man who met him could save himself from death; hence many
a janissary of those enclosed between the bulwarks, seeing Pan
Michael suddenly in front, did not even defend himself, but closing
his eyes, died under the thrust of the little knight’s rapier, with
the word “kismet” on his lips. Finally resistance grew weak; the
remnant of the Turks rushed to that wall of bodies which barred the
exit, and there they were finished.
The dragoons returned now through the filled fosse with singing,
shouting, and panting, with the odor of blood on them; a number
of cannon-shots were fired from the Turkish intrenchments and the
castle; then silence followed. Thus ended that artillery battle
which lasted some days, and was crowned by the storm of the
janissaries.
“Praise be to God,” said the little knight, “there will be rest
till the morning kindya at least, and in justice it belongs to us.”
But that was an apparent rest only, for when night was still deeper
they heard in the silence the sound of hammers beating the cliff.
“That is worse than artillery,” said Ketling, listening.
“Now would be the time to make a sortie,” said the little knight;
“but ’tis impossible; the men are too weary. They have not slept
and they have not eaten, though they had food, for there was no
time to take it. Besides, there are always some thousands on guard
with the miners, so that there may be no opposition from our side.
There is no help but to blow up the new castle ourselves, and
withdraw to the old one.”
“That is not for to-day,” answered Ketling. “See, the men have
fallen like sheaves of grain, and are sleeping a stone sleep. The
dragoons have not even wiped their swords.”
“Basia, it is time to go home and sleep,” said the little knight.
“I will, Michael,” answered Basia, obediently; “I will go as you
command. But the cloister is closed now; I should prefer to remain
and watch over your sleep.”
“It is a wonder to me,” said the little knight, “that after such
toil sleep has left me, and I have no wish whatever to rest my
head.”
“Because you have roused your blood among the janissaries,” said
Zagloba. “It was always so with me; after a battle I could never
sleep in any way. But as to Basia, why should she drag herself to a
closed gate? Let her remain here till morning.”
Basia pressed Zagloba with delight; and the little knight, seeing
how much she wished to stay, said,--
“Let us go to the chambers.”
They went in; but the place was full of lime-dust, which the
cannon-balls had raised by shaking the walls. It was impossible
to stay there, so they went out again, and took their places in a
niche made when the old gate had been walled in. Pan Michael sat
there, leaning against the masonry. Basia nestled up to him, like
a child to its mother. The night was in August, warm and fragrant.
The moon illuminated the niche with a silver light; the faces of
the little knight and Basia were bathed in its rays. Lower down, in
the court of the castle, were groups of sleeping soldiers and the
bodies of those slain during the cannonade, for there had been no
time yet for their burial. The calm light of the moon crept over
those bodies, as if that hermit of the sky wished to know who was
sleeping from weariness merely, and who had fallen into the eternal
slumber. Farther on was outlined the wall of the main castle, from
which fell a black shadow on one half of the courtyard. Outside the
walls, from between the bulwarks, where the janissaries lay cut
down with sabres, came the voices of men. They were camp followers
and those of the dragoons to whom booty was dearer than slumber;
they were stripping the bodies of the slain. Their lanterns were
gleaming on the place of combat like fireflies. Some of them called
to one another; and one was singing in an undertone a sweet song
not beseeming the work to which he was given at the moment:--
“Nothing is silver, nothing is gold to me now,
Nothing is fortune.
Let me die at the fence, then, of hunger,
If only near thee.”
But after a certain time that movement began to decrease, and at
last stopped completely. A silence set in which was broken only by
the distant sound of the hammers breaking the cliffs, and the calls
of the sentries on the walls. That silence, the moonlight, and the
night full of beauty delighted Pan Michael and Basia. A yearning
came upon them, it is unknown why, and a certain sadness, though
pleasant. Basia raised her eyes to her husband; and seeing that his
eyes were open, she said,--
“Michael, you are not sleeping.”
“It is a wonder, but I cannot sleep.”
“It is pleasant for you here?”
“Pleasant. But for you?”
Basia nodded her bright head. “Oh, Michael, so pleasant! ai, ai!
Did you not hear what that man was singing?”
Here she repeated the last words of the little song,--
“Let me die at the fence, then, of hunger,
If only near thee.”
A moment of silence followed, which the little knight interrupted,--
“But listen, Basia.”
“What, Michael?”
“To tell the truth, we are wonderfully happy with each other; and
I think if one of us were to fall, the other would grieve beyond
measure.”
Basia understood perfectly that when the little knight said “if
one of us were to fall,” instead of _die_, he had himself only in
mind. It came to her head that maybe he did not expect to come
out of that siege alive, that he wished to accustom her to that
termination; therefore a dreadful presentiment pressed her heart,
and clasping her hands, she said,--
“Michael, have pity on yourself and on me!”
The voice of the little knight was moved somewhat, though calm.
“But see, Basia, you are not right,” said he; “for if you only
reason the matter out, what is this temporal existence? Why break
one’s neck over it? Who would be satisfied with tasting happiness
and love here when all breaks like a dry twig,--who?”
But Basia began to tremble from weeping, and to repeat,--
“I will not hear this! I will not! I will not!”
“As God is dear to me, you are not right,” repeated the little
knight. “Look, think of it: there above, beyond that quiet moon,
is a country of bliss without end. Of such a one speak to me.
Whoever reaches that meadow will draw breath for the first time,
as if after a long journey, and will feed in peace. When my time
comes,--and that is a soldier’s affair,--it is your simple duty to
say to yourself: ‘That is nothing! Michael is gone. True, he is
gone far, farther than from here to Lithuania; but that is nothing,
for I shall follow him.’ Basia, be quiet; do not weep. The one who
goes first will prepare quarters for the other; that is the whole
matter.”
Here there came on him, as it were, a vision of coming events; for
he raised his eyes to the moonlight, and continued,--
“What is this mortal life? Grant that I am there first, waiting
till some one knocks at the heavenly gate. Saint Peter opens it. I
look; who is that? My Basia! Save us! Oh, I shall jump then! Oh,
I shall cry then! Dear God, words fail me. And there will be no
tears, only endless rejoicing; and there will be no Pagans, nor
cannon, nor mines under walls, only peace and happiness. Ai, Basia,
remember, this life is nothing!”
“Michael, Michael!” repeated Basia.
And again came silence, broken only by the distant, monotonous
sound of the hammers.
“Basia, let us pray together,” said Pan Michael, at last.
And those two souls began to pray. As they prayed, peace came on
both; and then sleep overcame them, and they slumbered till the
first dawn.
Pan Michael conducted Basia away before the morning kindya to the
bridge joining the old castle with the town. In parting, he said,--
“This life is nothing! remember that, Basia.”