Pan Yan, who had galloped in advance of the regiments to the castle to
inquire for the princess and Zagloba, did not find them. They had
neither been seen nor heard of, though there was news of the attack on
Rozlogi and the destruction of the troops at Vassílyevka. The knight
locked himself up in his quarters at the arsenal, together with his
disappointed hopes. Sorrow, fear, and affliction rushed upon him
again; but he defended himself from them as a wounded soldier on the
battle-field defends himself from crows and ravens flocking around to
drink his warm blood and tear his flesh. He strengthened himself with
the thought that Zagloba, being fertile in stratagems, might make his
way to Chernigoff and hide on receiving news of the defeat of the
hetmans. He remembered then that old man whom he met on the way to
Rozlogi, and who, together with his boy, as he said himself, had been
stripped of his clothes by some devil, and had sat three days in the
reeds of the Kagamlik, fearing to come out into the world. The thought
occurred to Skshetuski at once that it must be Zagloba who had stripped
them in order to get a disguise for himself and Helena. "It cannot be
otherwise," repeated he; and he found great consolation in this
thought, since such disguise made flight much more easy. He hoped that
God, who watches over innocence, would not abandon Helena; and wishing
the more to obtain this favor for her, he determined to purify himself
from his sins. He left the arsenal therefore; and on searching for the
priest Mukhovetski, and finding him engaged in consoling some women, he
begged to have his confession heard.
The priest led him to a chapel, entered the confessional at once, and
began to hear him. When he had finished, the priest instructed,
edified, and consoled him, strengthened his faith, and then rebuked
him, saying: "A Christian is not permitted to doubt the power of God,
or an individual to grieve more over his own misfortune than that of
his country; but you have more tears for your personal interests--that
is, for your friends--than for the nation, and grieve moreover your
love than over the catastrophe that has come upon all." Then he
described the defeats, the fall, the disgrace of the country, in such
lofty and touching speech that he roused at once great patriotism in
the heart of the knight, to whom his own misfortunes seemed so
belittled that he was almost unable to see them. The priest reproved
him for the animosity and hatred against the Cossacks which he had
observed in him.
"The Cossacks you will crush," said he, "as enemies of the faith and
the country, as allies of the Pagan; but you will forgive them for
having injured you, and pardon them from your heart, without thought of
vengeance. And when you manifest this, I know that God will comfort
you, restore your love to you, and send you peace."
Then the priest made the sign of the cross over Pan Yan, blessed him,
and went out, having enjoined as penance to lie in the form of a cross
till morning before the crucified Christ.
The chapel was empty and dark; only two candles were burning before the
altar, casting rosy and golden gleams on the face of Christ, cut from
alabaster and full of sweetness and suffering. Hours passed away, and
the lieutenant lay there motionless as if dead; but he felt with
increasing certainty that bitterness, despair, hatred, pain, grief,
suffering, were unwinding themselves from his heart,--crawling out of
his breast, creeping away like serpents, and hiding somewhere in the
darkness. He felt that he was breathing more freely, that a kind of new
health and new strength were entering into him, that his mind was
becoming clearer and a species of happiness was embracing him; in a
word, he found before that altar and before that Christ all, whatever
it might be, that a man of those ages could find,--a man of unshaken
faith, without a trace or a shadow of doubt.
Next morning the lieutenant was as if reborn. Work, movement, and
bustle began, for this was the day of leaving Lubni. Officers from
early morning had to review the regiments to see that horses and men
were in proper order, then lead them to the field, and put them in
marching array. The prince heard holy Mass in the Church of St.
Michael, after which he returned to the castle and received deputations
from the Greek clergy and from the townspeople of Lubni and Khoról.
Then he mounted the throne, in the hall painted by Helm, surrounded by
his foremost knights; and here Grubi, the mayor of Lubni, gave his
farewell in Russian in the name of all the places belonging to the
prince's Trans-Dnieper domains. He begged him first of all not to
depart, not to leave them as sheep without a shepherd; hearing which,
other deputies, clasping their hands, repeated, "Do not go away! do not
go away!" And when the prince answered that he must go, they fell at
the feet of their good lord in regret,--or pretended regret, for it was
said that many of them, notwithstanding all the kindness of the prince,
were very friendly to the Cossacks and Hmelnitski. But the more wealthy
of them were afraid of the disturbance which they feared would arise
immediately on the departure of the prince and his forces.
Vishnyevetski answered that he had tried to be a father, not a lord, to
them, and implored them to remain loyal to the king and the
Commonwealth,--the mother of all, under whose wings they had suffered
no injustice, had lived in peace, had grown in wealth, feeling no yoke
such as strangers would not fail to lay upon them. He took farewell of
the Greek clergy with similar words; after that came the hour of
parting. Then was heard throughout the whole castle the weeping and
lamentation of servants; the young ladies and ladies in waiting
fainted, and they were barely able to restore Anusia Borzobogata to her
senses. The princess herself was the only woman who entered a carriage
with dry eyes and uplifted head, for the proud lady was ashamed to show
the world that she suffered. Crowds of people stood near the castle;
all the bells in Lubni were tolling; the Russian priests blessed with
their crosses the departing company; the line of carriages and
equipages could scarcely squeeze through the gates of the castle.
Finally the prince mounted his horse. The regimental flags were lowered
before him; cannon were fired from the walls. The sounds of weeping,
the bustle and shouting of crowds were mingled with the sounds of bells
and guns, with the blare of trumpets and the rattle of drums. The
procession moved on.
In advance went the Tartar regiments, under Roztvorovski and Vershul;
then the artillery of Pan Vurtsel, the infantry of Makhnitski; next
came the princess with her ladies, then the whole court, and wagons
with valuables; after them the Wallachian regiment of Pan Bykhovets;
finally, the body of the army, the picked regiments of heavy artillery,
the armored regiments, and hussars; the rear was brought up by the
dragoons and the Cossacks.
After the army came an endless train of wagons, many-colored as a
serpent, and carrying the families of all those nobles who after the
departure of the prince would not remain east of the Dnieper.
The trumpets sounded throughout the regiments; but the hearts of all
were straitened. Each one looking at those walls thought to himself:
"Dear houses, shall I see you again in life?" It is easy to depart, but
difficult to return; and each left as it were a part of his soul in
those places, and a pleasant memory. Therefore all turned their eyes
for the last time on the castle, on the town, on the towers of the
Polish churches, on the domes of the Russian, and on the roofs of the
houses. Each one knew what he was leaving behind, but did not know what
was waiting there in that blue distance toward which the tabor was
moving.
Sadness therefore was in the soul of each person. The town called to
the departing ones with the voices of bells, as if beseeching and
imploring them not to leave it exposed to uncertainty, to the evil
fortune of the future; it called out as if by those sad sounds it
wished to say farewell and remain in their memory.
Though the procession moved away, heads were turned toward the town,
and in every face could be read the question: "Is this the last time?"
It was the last time. Of all the army and throng of thousands who in
that hour were going forth with Prince Vishnyevetski, neither he
himself nor any one of them was ever to look again upon that town or
that country.
The trumpets sounded. The tabor moved on slowly, but steadily; and
after a time Lubni began to be veiled in a blue haze, the houses and
roofs were blended into one mass brightly distinct. Then the prince
urged his horse ahead, and having ridden to a lofty mound stood
motionless and gazed long. That town gleaming there in the sun, and all
that country visible from the mound was the work of his ancestors and
himself. For the Vishnyevetskis had changed that gloomy wilderness of
the past into a settled country, opened it to the life of people, and
it may be said, created the Trans-Dnieper. And the greater part of that
work the prince had himself accomplished. He built those Polish
churches whose towers stood there blue over the town; he increased the
place, and joined it with roads to the Ukraine; he felled forests,
drained swamps, built castles, founded villages and settlements,
brought in settlers, put down robbers, defended from Tartar raids,
maintained the peace necessary to husbandman and merchant, and
introduced the rule of law and justice. Through him that country had
lived, grown, and flourished,--he was the heart and soul of it; and now
he had to leave all.
And it was not that colossal fortune, great as an entire German
principality, which the prince regretted, but he had become attached to
the work of his hands. He knew that when he was absent everything was
absent; that the labor of years would be destroyed at once; that toil
would go for nothing, ferocity would be unchained, flames would embrace
villages and towns, the Tartar would water his horse in those rivers,
woods would grow out of ruins; that if God granted him to return
everything would have to be begun anew, and perhaps his strength would
fail, time be wanting, and confidence such as he had enjoyed at first
would not be given him. Here passed the years which were for him praise
before men, merit before God; and now the praise and the merit are to
roll away in smoke.
Two tears flowed slowly down his face. These were his last tears, after
which remained in his eyes only lightning.
The prince's horse stretched out his neck and neighed, and this
neighing was answered immediately by other steeds under the banners.
These sounds roused the prince from his revery and filled him
with hope. And so there remains to him yet six thousand faithful
comrades,--six thousand sabres with which the world is open to him, and
to which the prostrate Commonwealth is looking as the only salvation.
The idyl beyond the Dnieper is at an end; but where cannon are
thundering, where villages and towns are in flames, where by night the
wail of captives, the groans of men, women, and children are mingled
with the neighing of Tartar horses and Cossack tumult, there is an open
field, and there he may win the glory of a savior and father of his
country. Who will reach for the crown, who rescue the fatherland,
disgraced, trodden under the feet of peasants, conquered, dying, if not
he, the prince,--if not those forces which shine there below him in
their armor and gleam in the sun?
The tabor passed by the foot of the mound; and at the sight of the
prince standing with his baton in his hand on the eminence under the
cross, all the soldiers gave forth one shout: "Long live the prince!
long live our leader and hetman Yeremi Vishnyevetski!"
A hundred banners were lowered to his feet. The hussars sounded their
horns, and the drums were beaten to accompany the shouts. Then the
prince drew forth his sabre, and raising it with his eyes to heaven,
said,--
"I, Yeremi Vishnyevetski, voevoda of Rus, prince in Lubni and
Vishnyovets, swear to thee, O God, One in a Holy Trinity, and to thee,
Most Holy Mother, that, raising this sabre against ruffianism by which
our land is disgraced, I will not lay it down while strength and life
remain to me, until I wash out that disgrace and bend every enemy to
the feet of the Commonwealth, give peace to the Ukraine, and drown
servile insurrection in blood. And as I make this oath with a sincere
heart, so God give me aid. Amen!"
He stood yet awhile longer looking at the heavens, then rode down
slowly from the height to the regiments. The army marched that evening
to Basani, a village belonging to Pani Krynitska, who received the
prince on her knees at the gate; for the peasants had laid siege to her
house and she was keeping them off with the assistance of the more
faithful of her servants, when the sudden arrival of the army saved her
and her nineteen children, of whom fourteen were girls. When the prince
had given orders to seize the aggressors, he sent a Cossack company to
Kanyeff under command of Captain Ponyatovski, who brought that same
night five Zaporojians of the Vasyutin kuren. These had all taken part
in the battle of Korsún, and when burned with fire gave a detailed
account of the battle. They stated that Hmelnitski was still in Korsún,
but that Tugai Bey had gone with captives, booty, and both hetmans to
Chigirin, whence he intended to return to the Crimea. They heard also
that Hmelnitski had begged him earnestly not to leave the Zaporojian
army, but to march against the prince. The murza, however, would not
agree to this, saying that after the destruction of the armies and
the hetmans, the Cossacks could go on alone; he would not wait longer,
for his captives would die. They put Hmelnitski's forces at two
hundred thousand, but of rather poor quality; of good men only fifty
thousand,--that is, Zaporojians and Cossacks subject to lords, or town
Cossacks who had joined the rebellion.
On receiving these tidings the prince grew strong in spirit, for he
hoped that he too would increase considerably in strength by the
accession of nobles on the west of the Dnieper, stragglers from the
army of the Crown, and detachments belonging to Polish lords. Therefore
he set out early next morning.
Beyond Pereyasláv the army entered immense gloomy forests extending
along the course of the Trubej to Kozelets, and farther on to
Chernigoff itself. It was toward the end of May, and terribly hot. In
the woods, instead of being cool, it was so sultry that men and horses
lacked air for breathing. Cattle, driven after the army, fell at every
step, or when they caught the smell of water, rushed to it as if wild,
overturning wagons and causing dismay. Horses too began to fall,
especially those of the heavy cavalry. The nights were unendurable from
the infinite number of insects and the overpowering odor of pitch,
which the trees dropped in unusual abundance by reason of the heat.
They dragged on in this way for four days; at length on the fifth day
the heat became unnatural. When night came the horses began to snort
and the cattle to bellow plaintively, as if foreseeing some danger
which men could not yet surmise.
"They smell blood!" was said in the tabor among the crowds of fugitive
families of nobles.
"The Cossacks are pursuing us! there will be a battle!"
At these words the women raised a lament, the rumor reached the
servants, panic and disturbance set in; the people tried to drive ahead
of one another, or to leave the track and go at random through the
woods, where they got entangled among the trees.
But men sent by the prince soon restored order. Scouts were ordered out
on every side, so as to be sure whether danger was threatening or not.
Skshetuski, who had gone as a volunteer with the Wallachians, returned
first toward morning and went straightway to the prince.
"What is the trouble?" asked Yeremi.
"Your Highness, the woods are on fire."
"Set on fire?"
"Yes; I seized a number of men who confessed that Hmelnitski had sent
volunteers to follow you and to set fire, if the wind should be
favorable."
"He wanted to roast us alive without giving battle. Bring the people
here!"
In a moment three herdsmen were brought,--wild, stupid, terrified,--who
immediately confessed that they were in fact commanded to set fire to
the woods. They confessed also that forces were despatched after the
prince, but that they were going to Chernigoff by another road, nearer
the Dnieper.
Meanwhile other scouts returned. All brought the same report: "The
woods are on fire."
But the prince did not allow himself to be disturbed in the least by
this. "It is a villanous method," said he; "but nothing will come of
it. The fire will not go beyond the rivers entering the Trubej."
In fact, into the Trubej, along which the army marched to the north,
there fell so many small rivers forming here and there broad morasses,
impassable for fire, that it would have been necessary to ignite the
woods beyond each one of them separately. The scouts soon discovered
that this was being done. Every day incendiaries were brought in; with
these they ornamented the pine-trees along the road.
The fires extended vigorously along the rivers to the east and west,
not to the north. In the night-time the heavens were red as far as the
eye could see. The women sang sacred hymns from dusk to the dawning of
the day. Terrified wild beasts from the flaming forests took refuge on
the road and followed the army, running in among the cattle of the
herds. The wind blew in the smoke, which covered the whole horizon. The
army and the wagons pushed forward as if through a dense fog, which the
eye could not penetrate. The lungs had no air; the smoke bit the eyes,
and the wind kept driving it on more and more each moment. The light of
the sun could not pierce the clouds, and there was more to be seen in
the night-time than in the day, for flames gave light. The woods seemed
to have no end.
In the midst of such burning forests and such smoke did Prince Yeremi
lead his army. Meanwhile news came that the enemy was marching on the
other side of the Trubej. The extent of his power was unknown, but
Vershul's Tartars affirmed that he was still far away.
One night Pan Sukhodolski came to the army from Bodenki, on the other
side of the Desna. He was an old attendant of the prince, who some
years before had settled in a village. He was fleeing before the
peasants, but brought news as yet unknown in the army.
Great consternation was caused when, asked by the prince for news, he
answered: "Bad, your Highness! You know already of the defeat of the
hetmans and the death of the king?"
The prince, who was sitting on a small camp-stool in front of the tent,
sprang to his feet. "How?--is the king dead?"
"Our merciful lord gave up the spirit in Merech a week before the
catastrophe at Korsún."
"God in his mercy did not permit him to live to such times!" said the
prince; then seizing himself by the head, he continued: "Awful times
have come upon the Commonwealth! Convocations and elections,--an
interregnum, dissensions, and foreign intrigues,--now, when the whole
people should become a single sword in a single hand. God surely has
turned away his face from us, and in his anger intends to punish us for
our sins. Only King Vladislav himself could extinguish these
conflagrations; for there was a wonderful affection for him among the
Cossacks, and besides, he was a military man."
At this time a number of officers--among them Zatsvilikhovski,
Skshetuski, Baranovski, Vurtsel, Makhnitski, and Polyanovski--approached
the prince, who said: "Gentlemen, the king is dead!"
Their heads were uncovered as if by command. Their faces grew serious.
Such unexpected news deprived all of speech. Only after a while came an
expression of universal sorrow.
"May God grant him eternal rest!" said the prince.
"And eternal light shine upon him!"
Soon after the priest Mukhovetski intoned "Dies Iræ;" and amidst those
forests and that smoke an unspeakable sorrow seized their hearts and
souls. It seemed to all as if some expected rescue had failed; as if
they were standing alone in the world, in presence of some terrible
enemy, and they had no one against him except their prince. So then all
eyes turned to him, and a new bond was formed between Vishnyevetski and
his men.
That evening the prince spoke to Zatsvilikhovski in a voice that was
heard by all,--
"We need a warrior king, so that if God grants us to give our votes at
an election, we will give them for Prince Karl, who has more of the
military genius than Kazimir."
"Vivat Carolus rex!" shouted the officers.
"Vivat!" repeated the hussars, and after them the whole army.
The prince voevoda had no thought, indeed, that those shouts raised
east of the Dnieper, in the gloomy forests of Chernigoff, would reach
Warsaw, and wrest from his grasp the baton of Grand Hetman of the
Crown.