The Deluge. Vol. 2

Babinich's party went in advance; after it the Lithuanian squadrons; then that of Voynillovich, that of Lauda, the hetman's own, and others. The horde remained behind; for Hassan Bey begged for that with insistence, fearing that his men might not withstand the first onset of the heavy cavalry. He had also another reckoning.

He wished, when the Lithuanians struck the enemy's front, to seize the camp with his Tartars; in the camp he expected to find very rich plunder. The hetman permitted this, thinking justly that the Tartars would strike weakly on the cavalry, but would fall like madmen on the tabor and might raise a panic, especially since the Prussian horses were less accustomed to their terrible howling.

In two hours, as Kmita had predicted, they halted in front of that elevation from which the scouting-party had looked into the intrenchments, and which now concealed the march of all the troops. The banneret, seeing the troops approaching, sprang forward like lightning with intelligence that the enemy, having withdrawn the pickets from this side of the river, had already moved, and that the rear of the tabor was just leaving the intrenchments.

When he heard this, Gosyevski drew his baton from the holsters of the saddle, and said, —

"They cannot return now, for the wagons block the way. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost! There is no reason to hide longer!"

He beckoned to the bunchuk-bearer; and he, raising the horse-tail standard aloft, waved it on every side. At this sign all the horse-tail standards began to wave, trumpets thundered, Tartar pipes squeaked, six thousand sabres were gleaming in the air, and six thousand throats shouted, —

"Jesus! Mary!"

"Allah uh Allah!"

Then squadron after squadron rose in a trot from behind the height. In Waldeck's camp they had not expected guests so soon, for a feverish movement set in. The drums rattled uninterruptedly; the regiments turned with front to the river.

It was possible to see with the naked eye generals and colonels flying between the regiments; they hurried to the centre with the cannon, so as to bring them forward to the river.

After a while both armies were not farther than a thousand yards from each other. They were divided only by a broad meadow, in the centre of which a river flowed. Another moment, and the first streak of white smoke bloomed out from the Prussian side toward the Poles.

The battle had begun.

The hetman himself sprang toward Kmita's troops, —

"Advance, Babinich! advance in God's name against that line!" And he pointed with his baton to the gleaming regiment of cavalry.

"Follow me!" commanded Pan Andrei. And pressing his horse with spurs, he moved at a gallop toward the river.

More swiftly than an arrow from a bow did they shoot forward. The horses had gained their highest speed, and were running with ears dropped back, and bodies stretched out like the bodies of hounds. The riders bent forward to the manes of their horses, and howling, lashed onward the beasts, which now did not seem to touch earth; they rushed with that impetus into the river. The water did not restrain them, for they came upon a broad ford, level and sandy; they reached the other bank, and sprang on in a body.

Seeing this, the regiment of armored cavalry moved toward them, first at a walk, then at a trot, and did not go faster; but when Kmita's front had come within twenty yards, the command "Fire!" was heard, and a thousand arms with pistols were stretched forward.

A line of smoke ran from one end of the rank to the other; then the two bodies struck each other with a crash. The horses reared at the first blow; over the heads of the combatants glittered sabres through the whole length of the line. A serpent as it were of lightning flew from end to end. The ominous clang of blades against helmets and breastplates was heard to the other side of the river. It seemed as if hammers were ringing in forges on plates of steel. The line bent in one moment into a crescent; for since the centre of the German cavalry yielded, pushed back by the first onset, the wings, against which less force was directed, kept their places. But the armored soldiers did not let the centre be broken, and a terrible slaughter began. On one side enormous men covered with armor resisted with the whole weight of horses; on the other the gray host of Tartars pushed with the force of accumulated impetus, cutting and thrusting with an inconceivable rapidity which only uncommon activity and ceaseless practice can give. As when a host of woodcutters rush at a forest of pine-trees there is heard only the sound of axes, and time after time some lofty tree falls to the ground with a fearful crash, so every moment some one of the cavalry bent his shining head and rolled under his horse. The sabres of Kmita's men glittered in their eyes, cut around their faces, eyes, hands. In vain does a sturdy soldier raise his heavy sword; before he can bring it down, he feels a cold point entering his body; then the sword drops from his hand, and he falls with bloody face on the neck of his horse. When a swarm of wasps attack in an orchard him who is shaking down fruit, vainly does the man ward them off with his hands, try to free himself, dodge aside; they reach his face skilfully, reach his neck, and each one drives into him a sharp sting. So did Kmita's raging men, trained in so many battles, rush forward, hew, cut, thrust, spread terror and death more and more stubbornly, surpassing their opponents as much as a skilful craftsman surpasses the sturdiest apprentice who is wanting in practice. Therefore the German cavalry began to fall more quickly; and the centre, against which Kmita himself was fighting, became so thin that it might break at any moment. Commands of officers, summoning soldiers to shattered places, were lost in the uproar and wild shouting; the line did not come together quickly enough, and Kmita pressed with increasing power. Wearing chain-mail, a gift from Sapyeha, he fought as a simple soldier, having with him the young Kyemliches and Soroka. Their office was to guard their master; and every moment some one of them turned to the right or the left, giving a terrible blow; but Kmita rushed on his chestnut horse to the thickest of the fight, and having all the secrets of Pan Michael, and gigantic strength, he quenched men's lives quickly. Sometimes he struck with his whole sabre; sometimes he barely reached with the point; sometimes he described a small circle merely, but quick as lightning, and a horseman flew head downward under his beast, as if a thunderbolt had hurled him from the saddle. Others withdrew before the terrible man.

At last Pan Andrei slashed the standard-bearer in the temple; he gave forth a sound like that which a cock gives if his throat is cut, and dropped the standard from his hand. At that moment the centre broke, and the disordered wings forming two chaotic bodies fled swiftly to the farther lines of the Prussian army.

Kmita looked through the broken centre into the depth of the field, and saw at once a regiment of red dragoons flying like wind to the aid of the broken cavalry.

"That is nothing!" thought he; "Volodyovski will cross the ford in a moment to aid me."

At that instant was heard the thunder of cannon so loud that the earth trembled in its foundations; musketry rattled from the intrenchment to those ranks of the Poles who had pushed forward most. The whole field was covered with smoke, and in that smoke Kmita's volunteers and Tartars closed with the dragoons.

But from the side of the river no one came with assistance.

The enemy had let Kmita pass the ford purposely, and then covered the ford with such a dreadful shower from cannons and muskets that no living foot could pass through it.

The troops of Pan Korsak tried first, and turned back in disorder; next the squadron of Voynillovich went to the middle of the ford, and turned back, – slowly, it is true, for that was the king's regiment, one of the most valiant in the army, but with a loss of twelve noted nobles and nineteen soldiers.

The water in the ford which was the only passage through the river was plashing under the blows of balls as under a dense pouring rain. Cannon-balls flew to the other bank, casting around clouds of sand.

Gosyevski himself rode up on a gallop, and when he had seen this, he knew that it was impossible for one living man to reach the opposite bank.

And still that might decide the fate of the battle. Then the forehead of the hetman frowned sternly. For a while he looked through his glass along the whole line of the enemy's troops, and cried to the orderly, —

"Rush to Hassan Bey; let the horde pass the deep bank as it can, and strike the tabor. What they find in the wagons will be theirs! There are no cannon there; it will be only hand to hand."

The horseman sprang forward with what breath was in his horse; but the hetman advanced to where under willows on the meadow stood the Lauda squadron, and halted before it.

Volodyovski was at the head of the squadron, gloomy and silent; but he looked in the eyes of the hetman, and his mustaches quivered.

"What do you think?" asked the hetman; "will the Tartars cross?"

"The Tartars will cross, but Kmita will perish!" answered the little knight.

"As God lives!" cried the hetman, suddenly; "this Kmita, if he had a head on his shoulders, might win the battle, not perish!"

Volodyovski said nothing; still he thought: "It was necessary either not to send any regiment across the river, or to send five."

The hetman looked awhile yet through his glass at the distant confusion which Kmita was making beyond the river; but the little knight, not being able to endure any longer, drew near him, and holding his sabre-point upward, said, —

"Your worthiness, if there were an order, I would try the ford again."

"Stop!" said Gosyevski, rather sharply; "it is enough that those will perish."

"They are perishing already," replied Volodyovski.

And in truth the uproar was becoming more definite and greater every moment. Evidently Kmita was retreating to the river.

"As God lives, I wanted that!" cried the hetman, suddenly; and he sprang like a thunderbolt to Voynillovich's squadron.

In fact, Kmita was retreating. After they had met the red dragoons, his men fought with their last strength; but the breath was already failing in their breasts, their wearied hands were drooping, and bodies were falling faster and faster; only hope that aid might come any moment from beyond the river kept courage in them yet.

Half an hour more passed, and the cry of "Strike!" was heard no longer; but to the aid of the red dragoons sprang Boguslav's regiment of heavy cavalry.

"Death is coming!" thought Kmita, seeing them approaching from the flank.

But he was a soldier who never had a doubt, for a moment, not only of his life, but of victory. Long and hazardous practice had given him also great knowledge of war; therefore lightning at dusk does not flash and then die out so quickly as the following thought flashed to the head of Pan Andrei: Evidently the Poles could not cross the ford to the enemy; and since they could not, he would lead the enemy to them.

Boguslav's regiment was coming on at full sweep, and not more than a hundred yards distant; in a moment they could strike and scatter his Tartars. Pan Andrei raised the pipe to his mouth, and whistled so shrilly that the nearest dragoon horses rose on their haunches.

That instant other pipes of the Tartar leaders repeated the whistle; and not so swiftly does the whirlwind twist the sand as that chambul turned its horses in flight.

The remnant of the mailed cavalry, the red dragoons, and Boguslav's regiment sprang after them with all speed.

The shouts of the officers – "Naprzod (Forward)!" and "Gott mit uns (God with us)!" – rang like a storm, and a marvellous sight was seen then. Over the broad meadow rushed the disordered and confused chambul of Tartars, straight to the ford, which was rained on with bullets and balls; and they tore onward, as if carried with wings. Every Tartar lay on the horse, flattened himself, hid himself in the mane and the neck, in such fashion that had it not been for the cloud of arrows flying back toward the cavalry, it might be said that the horses were rushing on riderless; after them, with roaring, shouting, and trampling, followed gigantic men, with upraised swords gleaming in their right hands.

The ford was nearer and nearer; there was half a furlong left yet, and evidently the Tartar horses were using their last strength, for the distance between them and the cavalry was quickly decreasing.