Next morning early the commissioners left Novoselki, and with them
Skshetuski; but that was a tearful journey, in which at every
stopping-place, in every village, they were threatened with death, and
met with contempt, which was worse than death,--worse specially in
this, that the commissioners bore in their own persons the dignity and
majesty of the Commonwealth. Pan Kisel grew ill, so that at every
lodging-place he was borne from the sleigh to the house. The
chamberlain of Lvoff wept over his own disgrace and that of the
country. Captain Bryshovski fell ill also from sleeplessness and toil.
Pan Yan therefore took his place, and led on farther that hapless suite
amidst the pressure of crowds, insults, threats, skirmishes, and
battles.
At Bélgorod it seemed to the commissioners again that their last hour
had come. The crowd had beaten the sick Bryshovski, were killing Pan
Gnyazdovski; and only the arrival of the metropolitan for an interview
with the voevoda put a stop to the intended slaughter. They did not
wish to admit the commissioners into Kieff at all. Prince Chetvertinski
returned, February 11, from Hmelnitski without an answer. The
commissioners did not know what further to do or where to go. Their
return was prevented by immense parties waiting only for the breaking
of negotiations to kill the envoys. The mob became more and more
insolent; the bridles of the dragoons' horses were seized, and the road
stopped; stones, pieces of ice, and frozen lumps of snow were thrown
into the sleigh of the voevoda. At Gvozdova, Skshetuski and Donyéts had
to fight a bloody battle in which they dispersed several hundred of the
mob. The ensign of Novgrodek and Pan Smyarovski went with a new
argument to persuade Hmelnitski to come to meet the commissioners at
Kieff, but the voevoda had little hope that they would live to reach
him. Meanwhile the commissioners in Khvastovo were forced to look with
folded arms on the crowds killing prisoners of both sexes and of every
age. Some were drowned through holes in the ice, some were drenched
with water poured over them in the frost, others stabbed with forks or
whittled to death with knives. Eighteen of such days passed before at
last the answer came from Hmelnitski that he would not go to Kieff, but
was waiting in Pereyasláv for the voevoda and the commissioners.
When they had crossed the Dnieper at Trypole and reached Voronkovo in
the night, from which place it was only thirty miles to Pereyasláv, the
unfortunate commissioners drew a breath of relief, thinking that their
torment was over. Hmelnitski went out two miles and a half to meet
them, wishing to show honor to the royal embassy, but how changed from
those days in which he put himself forward as an injured man,--"quantum
mutatus ab illo!" as Kisel justly wrote of him. He rode forth with a
suite of horsemen, with his colonels and essauls, with martial music,
under the standard, bunchuk, and crimson banner, like a sovereign
prince.
The commissioners with their retinue halted at once; and Hmelnitski,
riding up to the front sleigh, in which sat the voevoda, looked for a
while at his venerable face, then raised his cap slightly and said,--
"With the forehead to you, Commissioners of the king, and to you,
Voevoda. It had been better to commence treating with me long ago, when
I was less and did not know my own power; but because the king has sent
you to me, I receive you with thankful heart in my own land."
"Greetings to you, Hetman!" answered Kisel. "His Majesty the King has
sent us to present his favor and mete out justice."
"I am thankful for the favor; but justice I have already meted out with
this [and here he struck upon his sabre] on your necks, and I will mete
out more of it if you do not give me satisfaction."
"You do not greet us very affably, Pan Hetman of the Zaporojians,--us,
the envoys of the king."
"I will not speak in the cold; there will be a better time for that,"
replied Hmelnitski, dryly. "Let me into your sleigh, Kisel, for I wish
to show you honor and ride with you."
Then he dismounted and approached the sleigh. Kisel pushed himself to
the right, leaving the left side vacant. Seeing this, Hmelnitski
frowned and exclaimed: "Give me the right side!"
"I am a senator of the Commonwealth," replied Kisel.
"And what is a senator to me? Pan Pototski is the first senator and
hetman of the Crown; I have him in fetters with others, and can empale
him to-morrow, if I wish."
A blush appeared on the pale face of Kisel. "I represent the person of
the king here!" said he.
Hmelnitski frowned still more, but restrained himself and sat on the
left side, muttering: "Granted; he is king in Warsaw, but I am in
Russia. I see that I have not trodden enough on your necks."
Kisel gave no answer, but raised his eyes to heaven. He had already a
foretaste of that which waited him, and he thought justly at that time
that if the road to Hmelnitski was a Calvary, to be envoy to him was a
passion indeed.
The horses moved to the town, in which twenty cannon were thundering
and all the bells tolling. Hmelnitski, as if fearing that the
commissioners should consider these sounds as given out exclusively in
their honor, said to the voevoda,--
"I receive in this manner not only you but other ambassadors who are
sent to me."
And Hmelnitski spoke the truth, for in fact embassies were sent to him
as to a reigning prince. Returning from Zamost under the influence of
the election and the defeats inflicted by the Lithuanian forces, the
hetman had not one half of this pride in his heart; but when Kieff went
forth to meet him with torches and banners, when the academy greeted
him "tamquam Moijsem, servatorem, salvatorem, liberatorem, populi de
servitute lechica et bono omine Bogdan,--God-given;" when finally he
was called "illustrissimus princeps,"--then, according to the words of
a contemporary, "the beast was elated." He had a real sense of his
power, and felt the ground under his feet, which had been wanting to
him hitherto.
Foreign embassies were a silent recognition as well of his power as of
his separateness; the uninterrupted friendship of the Tartars,
purchased by the greater part of the booty gained, and by the ill-fated
captives whom that leader of the people permitted to be taken from the
people, promised support against every enemy; therefore Hmelnitski, who
recognized at Zamost the suzerainty and will of the king, was at that
time so settled in pride, convinced of his own power, of the disorder
of the Commonwealth, the incompetence of its leaders, that he was ready
to raise his hand against the king himself, dreaming in his gloomy
soul, not of Cossack freedom nor the restoration of the former
privileges of the Zaporojians, not of justice for himself, but of a
separate lordship, of a princely crown and sceptre.
And he felt himself master of the Ukraine. The Zaporojians clung to
him, for never under any man's command had they so wallowed in blood
and booty. A people wild by nature rallied to him; for while the
peasant of Mazovia or of Great Poland bore without a murmur that burden
of power and oppression which in all Europe weighed upon the
"descendants of Ham," the man of the Ukraine drew into himself with the
air of the steppes a love of freedom as unbounded, wild, and vigorous
as the steppes themselves. Could he wish to walk after the plough of a
master when his gaze was lost in the fields of God, and not of a
master; when beyond the Cataracts the Saitch called to him, "Leave your
lord, and come to freedom!" when the stern Tartar taught him war,
accustomed his eyes to conflagration and slaughter and his hands to
weapons? Was it not pleasanter for him to frolic with Hmelnitski and
"slay the lords" than to bend his proud back before a land steward?
Besides this, the people rallied to Hmelnitski, for whoever did not
went into captivity. In Stamboul a prisoner was exchanged for ten
arrows, and three for a bow seasoned by the fire,--such was the number
of them! The multitude indeed had no choice; and one song, wonderful
for that time, has remained, which long afterward succeeding
generations sang of that leader called a Moses,--"Oh, that the first
bullet might not miss that Hmelnitski!"
Villages, towns, and hamlets disappeared; the country was turned into a
desert and a ruin,--a wound which ages were not able to heal. But that
leader and hetman did not see this, or did not wish to see it; for he
never saw anything by reason of himself, and he grew and fattened on
blood and fire. In his own monstrous self-love he was destroying his
own people and his own country; and now he brings in those
commissioners to Pereyasláv with the thunder of cannon and the tolling
of bells, as a separate ruler, as a hospodar, as a prince!
The commissioners went into the den of the lion hanging their heads,
and the remnant of hope was quenched in them. Meanwhile Skshetuski,
riding behind the second rank of sleighs, examined carefully the faces
of the colonels who had come with Hmelnitski, to find among them Bogun.
After fruitless search on the Dniester to a point beyond Yagorlik, the
plan had long since matured in the soul of Pan Yan, as the last and
only method, to find Bogun and challenge him to a death-struggle. The
unfortunate knight knew, it is true, that in such a venture Bogun might
destroy him without a struggle or give him up to the Tartars; but he
thought better of Bogun. He was aware of his courage and mad daring,
and was almost sure that, having the choice, he would fight for the
princess. Therefore he formed the plan to bind Bogun by an oath that in
case of his death he would let Helena go. Of himself Skshetuski did not
care; and supposing that Bogun would say, "If I die, she is neither for
me nor for you," he was ready to agree to this and bind himself by
oath, if he could only save her from the hands of the enemy. Let her
seek peace in the cloister for the rest of her life. He would seek that
peace first in war, and then if death did not come to him, would seek
it under the habit, as did all suffering souls in that age. The way
seemed to Skshetuski straight and clear; and since at Zamost the idea
of a struggle with Bogun had been given, now that his search along the
reeds of the Dniester was fruitless, that way seemed the only one. With
this purpose he hurried from the Dniester in one journey, resting
nowhere, hoping to find Bogun without fail either near Hmelnitski or in
Kieff, especially since, according to what Zagloba had said in
Yarmolintsi, the chief was to be married in Kieff with three hundred
tapers.
But Skshetuski sought him in vain among the colonels. He found instead
many old acquaintances of peace times,--such as Daidyalo, whom he had
seen in Chigirin; Yashevski, who had been an envoy from the Saitch to
the Prince; Yarosha, a former sotnik of the prince; Naókolopályets,
Grusha, and many others. He determined then to ask them.
"We are old acquaintances," said Skshetuski, approaching Yashevski.
"I knew you in Lubni; you are one of Prince Yeremi's knights. We drank
and frolicked together in Lubni. And what is your prince doing?"
"He is well."
"In spring he will not be well. He hasn't met Hmelnitski yet; but he
will meet him, and will have to go to destruction alone."
"As God judges."
"God is good to our father Hmelnitski. Your prince will never return to
his Tartar bank on the east of the Dnieper. Hmelnitski has many a
Cossack, and what has your prince? He is a good soldier. And are you
not in his service now?"
"I attend the commissioners."
"Well, I am glad; you are an old acquaintance."
"If you are glad, then do me a service, and I shall be thankful."
"What service?"
"Tell me where is Bogun, that famous ataman, formerly of the Pereyasláv
regiment, who must have a high office among you now."
"Silence!" answered Yashevski, threateningly. "It is your luck that we
are old acquaintances and that I drank with you, otherwise I should
stretch you on the snow with this whirlbat."
Skshetuski was astonished; but being a man of ready courage, he
squeezed his baton and asked: "Are you mad?"
"I am not mad, nor do I wish to threaten you; but there is an order
from Hmelnitski that if any of you, even one of the commissioners,
should ask a question, to kill him on the spot. If I do not do this,
another will; therefore I warn you out of good feeling."
"But I ask in my own private affair."
"Well, it is all one. Hmelnitski told us, the colonels, and commanded
us to tell others: 'If any one asks, even about wood for the stove,
or ashes, kill him.' You tell this to your people."
"I thank you for good advice," said Skshetuski.
"You are the only one; I have warned you alone. I should be the first
to stretch another Pole on the ground."
They were silent. The party had already reached the gates of the town.
Both sides of the road and the street were swarming with the crowd and
armed Cossacks, who out of regard for the presence of Hmelnitski did
not dare to scatter curses and lumps of snow at the sleighs, but who
looked frowningly at the commissioners, clinching their fists or
grasping the hilts of their sabres.
Skshetuski, having formed his dragoons four deep, raised his head and
rode haughtily and calmly through the broad street, not paying the
least attention to the threatening looks of the multitude; in his soul
he only thought how much cool blood, self-reliance, and Christian
patience would be necessary for him to carry through what he had
planned, and not sink at the first step in that sea of hatred.