With Fire and Sword Henryk Sienkiewicz (different e readers .TXT) 📖

“Pardon me! I see now that we must let the young Krívonos go, so as to catch the old one. I judge therefore that you will not leave me in this undertaking.”

“Of course not!” answered the voevoda.

Then the trumpets sounded the retreat to the regiments who had followed the Cossacks. It was necessary to rest and eat, and let the horses draw breath. In the evening a whole division arrived from Bystrika, and with it Pan Stakhovich, an envoy from the voevoda of Bratslav. Pan Kisel wrote the prince a letter full of homage, saying that like a second Marius he was saving the country from the last abyss; he wrote also of the joy which the arrival of the prince from the Trans-Dnieper roused in all hearts, and wished him success; but at the end of the letter appeared the reason for which it was written. Kisel stated that negotiations had been begun, that he with other commissioners was going to Bélaya Tserkoff, and had hopes of restraining and satisfying Hmelnitski. Finally he begged the prince not to press so hard on the Cossacks before negotiations, and to desist from military action as far as possible.

If the prince had been told that all his Trans-Dnieper possessions were destroyed, and all the towns levelled to the earth, he would not have been pained so acutely as he was over that letter. Skshetuski, Baranovski, Zatsvilikhovski, the two Tishkyevichi, and the Kyerdéis were present. The prince covered his eyes with his hands, and pushed back his head as if an arrow had struck him in the heart.

“Disgrace! disgrace! God grant me to die rather than behold such things!”

Deep silence reigned among those present, and the prince continued⁠—

“I do not wish to live in this Commonwealth, for today I must be ashamed of it. The Cossack and the peasant mob have poured blood on the country, and joined pagandom against their own mother. The hetmans are beaten, the armies swept away. The fame of the nation is trampled upon, its majesty insulted, churches are burned, priests and nobles cut down, women dishonored, and what answer does the Commonwealth give to all these defeats and this shame, at the very remembrance of which our ancestors would have died? Here it is! She begins negotiations with the traitor, the disgracer, the ally of the Pagan, and offers him satisfaction. Oh, God grant me death! I repeat it, since there is no life in the world for us who feel the dishonor of our country and bring our heads as a sacrifice for it.”

The voevoda of Kiev was silent, and the under-judge of Bratslav answered after a while⁠—

“Pan Kisel does not compose the Commonwealth.”

“Do not speak to me of Pan Kisel,” said the prince; “for I know well that he has a whole party behind him. He has struck the mind of the primate, the chancellor, and Prince Dominik, and many lords who today in the interregnum bear rule in the Commonwealth and represent its majesty, but rather disgrace it by weakness unworthy of a great people; for this conflagration is to be quenched by blood, and not by negotiations, since it is better for a knightly nation to perish than to become low-lived and rouse the contempt of the whole world for themselves.”

The prince again covered his eyes with his hands. The sight of that pain and sorrow was so sad that the colonels knew not what to do by reason of the tears that came into their eyes.

“Your Highness,” Zatsvilikhovski made bold to say, “let them use their tongues; we will continue to use our swords.”

“True,” answered the prince; “and my heart is rent with the thought of what we shall do farther on. When we heard of the defeat of our country we came through burning forests and impassable swamps, neither sleeping nor eating, using the last power we had to save our mother from destruction and disgrace. Our hands drop down from toil, hunger is gnawing our entrails, wounds are torturing us, but we regard no toil if we can only stop the enemy. They say that I am angry because command has not come to me. Let the whole world judge if those are more fitted for it who got it; but I, gentlemen, take God and you to witness that I as well as you do not bring my blood in sacrifice for rewards and dignities, but out of pure love for the country. But when we are giving the last breath in our bodies, what do they tell us? Well, that the gentlemen in Warsaw, and Pan Kisel in Gushchi are thinking of satisfaction for our enemy. Infamy, infamy!”

“Kisel is a traitor!” cried Baranovski.

Thereupon Pan Stakhovich, a man of dignity and courage, rose, and turning to Baranovski, said⁠—

“Being a friend of the voevoda of Bratslav, and an envoy from him, I permit no man to call him a traitor. His beard too has grown gray from trouble, and he serves his country according to his understanding⁠—it may be mistakenly, but honorably!”

The prince did not hear this answer, for he was plunged in meditation and in pain. Baranovski did not dare to pick a quarrel in his presence; he only fastened his eyes steadily on Pan Stakhovich, as if wishing to say, “I shall find you,” and put his hand on his sword-hilt.

Meanwhile Yeremi recovered from his revery, and said gloomily: “There is no other choice but to fail in upholding obedience (for during the interregnum they are the government) or the honor of our country for which we are laboring to devote⁠—”

“From disobedience flows all the evil in the Commonwealth,” said the voevoda of Kiev, with seriousness.

“Are we therefore to permit the disgrace of our country? And if tomorrow we are commanded to go with ropes around our necks to Tugai Bey and Hmelnitski, are we to do that for