Hmelnitski and Skshetuski went to spend the night at the house of the
koshevoi, and with them Tugai Bey, for whom it was too late to return
to Bazaluk. The wild bey treated the lieutenant as a captive who was to
be ransomed for a large sum, and therefore not as a slave; and with
greater respect indeed than he would have shown perhaps to Cossacks,
for he had seen him formerly as an envoy at the court of the Khan. In
view of this the koshevoi asked Pan Yan to his own house, and also
changed his bearing toward him. The old koshevoi was a man devoted body
and soul to Hmelnitski, who had conquered and taken possession of him.
He had observed that Hmelnitski seemed anxious to save the life of the
captive at the time of the council; but he was more astonished when,
after having barely entered the room, Hmelnitski turned to Tugai Bey.
"Tugai Bey," said he, "how much ransom do you think of getting for this
captive?"
Tugai Bey looked at Skshetuski and answered: "You said this was a man
of distinction, and I know that he was an envoy of the terrible prince,
and the terrible prince is fond of his own men. Bismillah! one pays and
the other pays--together--" here Tugai Bey stopped to think--"two
thousand thalers."
Hmelnitski answered: "I will give you two thousand thalers."
The Tartar was silent for a moment. His black eyes appeared to pierce
Hmelnitski through and through. "You will give three," said he.
"Why should I give three when you asked two yourself?"
"For if you wish to have him, it is important for you; and if it is
important, you will give three."
"He saved my life."
"Allah! that is worth a thousand more."
Here Skshetuski interfered in the bargain. "Tugai Bey," said he, with
anger, "I can promise you nothing from the prince's treasury; but even
if I had to injure my own fortune, I would give you three. I have
almost that much saved in the prince's hands, and a good village, which
will be sufficient. And I do not want to thank this hetman for my
freedom and life."
"And whence dost thou know what I shall do with thee?" asked
Hmelnitski; and then turning to Tugai Bey, he said: "The war will
begin. You will send to the prince, and before the return of your
messenger much water will flow down the Dnieper, but I will take you
the money myself to Bazaluk to-morrow."
"Give four, and I will not say another word to the Pole," answered
Tugai, impatiently.
"I will give four, on your word."
"Hetman," said the koshevoi, "I will count it out this minute. I have
it here under the wall, maybe more."
"To-morrow you will take it to Bazaluk," said Hmelnitski.
Tugai Bey stretched himself and yawned. "I am sleepy," said he.
"To-morrow before daylight I must start for Bazaluk. Where am I to
sleep?"
The koshevoi showed him a pile of sheepskins against the wall. The
Tartar threw himself on this bed, and a little later was snorting like
a horse.
Hmelnitski walked a number of times across the room, and said: "Slumber
escapes my eyelids; I cannot sleep. Give me something to drink, most
worthy koshevoi."
"Gorailka or wine?"
"Gorailka. I cannot sleep."
"It is cockcrow already," said the koshevoi.
"It is late. Go you to sleep, old friend! Drink and go!"
"Here is to fame and success!"
"To success!"
The koshevoi wiped his lips with his sleeve, then gave his hand to
Hmelnitski, and going to the other corner of the room buried himself
almost in sheepskins, for his blood had grown cold through age. Soon
his snoring answered the snoring of Tugai Bey.
Hmelnitski sat at the table, sunk in silence. Suddenly he started up,
looked at Skshetuski, and said: "Well, worthy lieutenant, you are
free."
"I am thankful to you, Zaporojian hetman, though I do not conceal from
you that I should prefer to thank some one else for my freedom."
"Then do not thank. You saved my life, I return you good; now we are
even. And I must tell you also that I will not let you go immediately
unless you give me the word of a knight that when you have returned you
will say nothing of our preparation or power or of anything you have
seen in the Saitch."
"I see only this, that you offer me useless fruit of freedom to taste.
I will not give you such a word; for by giving it, I should act
precisely as those who go over to the enemy."
"My life and the safety of the Zaporojian army lie in this, that the
Grand Hetman should not move on us with all his forces, which he would
not be slow to do should you inform him of our power. Be not surprised,
then, if I detain you until I find myself out of danger, unless you
give your word. I know what I have undertaken; I know how formidable is
the power opposed to me,--the two hetmans, your terrible prince (who is
a whole army himself), the Zaslavskis and Konyetspolskis and all those
kinglets who keep their feet on the Cossack neck! Not small was my
labor, nor few the letters I wrote before I succeeded in putting their
watchfulness to sleep; now I cannot allow you to rouse it. Since the
masses of the people, with the Cossacks of the towns, and all who are
oppressed in faith and freedom will take my side, as well as the
Zaporojian army and the Khan of the Crimea, I expect to manage the
enemy, for my power will be considerable; but most of all do I trust in
God, who has beheld the injustice done, and who sees my innocence."
Here Hmelnitski drank a glass of vudka, and began to walk unquietly
around the table. Skshetuski measured him with his eyes, and spoke with
power,--
"Do not blaspheme, Zaporojian hetman, by calling upon God and his
divine protection; for in truth you will only bring down upon yourself
his anger and swift punishment. Is it right for you to call the Highest
to your defence,--you, who for the sake of your private squabbles and
the injustice done you raise such a terrible storm, kindle the flame of
civil war, and join yourself with Pagans against Christians? For what
will happen? Whether victorious or vanquished, you will shed a sea of
human blood and tears, you will desolate the land worse than locusts,
you will shake the Commonwealth, you will raise your hand against
majesty, you will desecrate the altars of the Lord; and all this
because Chaplinski took some land from you, and threatened you when he
was drunk! What do you not attempt? What do you not devote to your
private interests? You call upon God; and though I am in your power,
though you can take my life and freedom, I tell you that you are a
Satan. Call not God to your assistance, for hell alone can give you
aid!"
Hmelnitski grew purple and reached for his sword. He looked at the
lieutenant like a lion about to roar and spring on his victim, but he
restrained himself. Fortunately, he was not drunk yet. Perhaps, also,
disquiet had seized him, maybe certain voices called from his soul to
turn from the road; for suddenly, as if wishing to defend himself
before his own thoughts, he said,--
"From another I should not have endured such speech, but do you have a
care that your boldness does not exhaust my patience. You frighten me
with hell, you speak to me of private interests and of treason. And
from whence do you know that I have risen to avenge private wrongs
alone? Where should I find assistance, where those thousands who have
already taken my side and who are taking it, if I wished merely to
redress wrongs of my own? Look around at what is going on in the
Ukraine. Oh, rich land, motherland, native land! And who in her is sure
of to-morrow, who in her is happy, who is not robbed of his faith,
spoiled of his freedom; who in her is not weeping and sighing?--save
only the Vishnyevetskis, the Pototskis, the Zaslavskis, Kalinovskis,
Konyetspolskis, and a handful of nobles! For them are crown estates,
dignities, land, and people,--for them happiness and golden freedom;
and the rest of the nation in tears stretch forth their hands to heaven
waiting for the pity of God, since the pity of the king cannot help
them. How many, even of the nobility, unable to bear this intolerable
oppression, have fled to the Saitch, as I myself have fled? I want no
war with the king, I want no war with the Commonwealth! It is the
mother, and he is the father. The king is a merciful lord; but the
kinglets!--with them it is impossible for us to live; their extortions,
their rents, meadow-taxes, mill-taxes, eye and horn taxes, their
tyranny and oppression exercised through the agency of Jews, cry for
vengeance. What thanks has the Zaporojian army received for great
services rendered in numerous wars? Where are the Cossack rights? The
king gave them, the kinglets took them away. Nalivaika quartered!
Pavlyuk burned in a brazen bull! The blood is not dry on the wounds
inflicted by the sabres of Jolkevski and Konyetspolski! The tears have
not dried for those killed and empaled on stakes; and now look! What is
gleaming in the sky?"--here Hmelnitski pointed through the window at
the flaming comet,--"The anger of God, the scourge of God! And if I
have to be the scourge of God on earth, then let the will of God be
done! I will take the burden on my shoulders."
Having said this, he raised his hand above his head and seemed to flame
up like a great torch of vengeance, and began to tremble; and then he
dropped on the bench, as if bent down by the weight of his destiny.
Silence followed, interrupted only by the snoring of Tugai Bey and the
koshevoi, and by the plaintive chirp of the cricket in one corner of
the cabin.
The lieutenant sat with drooping head, as if seeking answers to the
words of Hmelnitski, as weighty as blocks of granite; at length he
began to speak in a quiet and sad voice,--
"Alas! even if that were true, who art thou, Hetman, to create thyself
judge and executioner? With what tyranny and pride art thou carried
away? Why dost thou not leave judgment and punishment to God? I do not
defend the wicked, I do not praise injustice, I do not call oppression
right; but, dost thou believe in thyself, Hetman? Thou complainest of
oppression from the kinglets,--that they listen neither to the king nor
justice. Thou condemnest their pride, but art thou free of it thyself?
Do you not raise your hand upon the Commonwealth, on right and majesty?
You see the tyranny of lordlets and nobility, but you do not see that
were it not for their breasts, their bosoms, their breastplates, their
power, their castles, their cannon, and their legions, this land,
flowing with milk and honey, would groan under the hundred times
heavier yoke of the Turk and the Tartar! For who would defend it? By
whose care and power is it that your children are not serving as
janissaries, and your women dragged off to infamous harems? Who settled
the desert, founded villages and towns, and raised up the sanctuary of
God?"
Here the voice of Skshetuski grew stronger and stronger; and Hmelnitski
looked with gloomy eyes into the bottle of vudka,[9] put his clinched
fists on the table, and was silent as if struggling with himself.
"And who are they?" continued Skshetuski. "Have they come from Germany
or from Turkey? Is it not the blood of your blood, and the bone of your
bone? Are not the nobility yours, and the princelets yours? If that is
true, then woe to thee, Hetman; for thou art raising up the younger
brothers against the elder, and making parricides of them. Oh, in God's
name, even if they were wicked,--even if all of them, as many as there
are, have trampled upon justice, violated rights,--let God judge them
in heaven, and the Diet on earth, but not you, O Hetman! Are you able
to say that among yours there are only just men? Have yours never been
guilty, that you have a right to cast a stone at another for his guilt?
And if you ask me, Where are the rights of the Cossacks, I answer: Not
kinglets betrayed them, but Zaporojians,--Loboda, Sasko, Nalivaika, and
Pavlyuk, of whom you falsely say that he was roasted in a brazen bull,
for you know well that this is not true! Your seditions, your
disturbances and attacks, made like attacks of Tartars, were put down.
Who let the Tartars into the boundaries of the Commonwealth, so that
when they were coming back laden with booty, they might be attacked?
You! Who--God guard us!--gave their own Christian people into
captivity? Who raised the greatest disturbances? You! Before whom is
neither noble nor merchant nor village safe? Before you! Who has
inflamed domestic war, who has sent up in smoke the villages and towns
of the Ukraine, plundered the sanctuaries of God, violated women? You!
you! What do you want, then? Do you want that the rights of making
civil war and of robbing and plundering should be granted you? In
truth, more has been forgiven you than taken away! We wished to cure
putrid members instead of cutting them off, and I know no power in the
world but the Commonwealth that would exhibit equal patience and
clemency by permitting such an ulcer in its own bosom. But what is your
gratitude in response? There sleeps your ally, but the raging enemy of
the Commonwealth,--your friend, but the foe of the cross and
Christianity,--not a kinglet of the Ukraine, but a murza of the Crimea;
and with him you will go to burn your own home, and with him to judge
your own brother. But he will lord it over you, and you will be forced
to hold his stirrup."
Hmelnitski emptied another glass of vudka. "When we, with Barabash,
were with his Majesty the King, and when we wept over the oppression
and injustice practised on us, he said, 'But have you not muskets, and
have you not sabres at your side?'"
"If you were standing before the King of kings, he would say, 'Forgive
your enemies, as I forgive mine.'"
"I do not wish to war with the Commonwealth."
"But you put your sword to its throat."
"I go to free the Cossacks from your fetters."
"To tie them in Tartar bonds!"
"I wish to defend the faith."
"In company with the Pagan."
"Stop! You are not the voice of my conscience. Stop, I tell you!"
"Blood will weigh you down, the tears of men will accuse you, death
awaits you, judgment awaits you!"
"Screech-owl!" shouted Hmelnitski in rage, and flashed a knife before
the breast of Skshetuski.
"Strike!" said Skshetuski.
Again came a moment of silence; again there was nothing to be heard but
the snore of the sleeping men and the plaintive chirp of the cricket.
Hmelnitski stood for a time with the knife at Skshetuski's breast;
suddenly he trembled, he bethought himself, dropped the knife, and
seizing the decanter of vudka, began to drink. He emptied it, and sat
heavily on the bench.
"I cannot stab him," he muttered,--"I cannot. It is late--is that
daylight?--but it is late to turn from the road. Why speak to me of
judgment and blood?"
He had already drunk much; the vudka was rising to his head. He went
on, gradually losing consciousness: "What judgment? The Khan promised
me reinforcements. Tugai Bey is sleeping here! To-morrow the Cossacks
march. With us is Saint Michael the victorious! But if--if--I ransomed
thee from Tugai Bey--remember it, and say--Oh, something pains--pains!
To turn from the road--'tis late!--judgment--Nalivaika--Pavlyuk--"
Suddenly he straightened himself, strained his eyes in fright, and
cried: "Who is there?"
"Who is there?" repeated the half-roused koshevoi.
But Hmelnitski dropped his head on his breast, nodded a couple of
times, muttered, "What judgment?" and fell asleep.
Skshetuski grew very pale and weak from recent wounds and from the
excitement of talking. He thought therefore that perhaps death was
coming, and began to pray aloud.