The Deluge. Vol. 1

"Your highness, we are unwilling to believe our own ears! By the wounds of Christ! must the labor of Vladislav and Sigismund Augustus come to nothing? Is it possible, is it honorable, to desert brothers, to desert the country, and unite with the enemy? Remember the name which you bear, the services which you have rendered the country, the fame of your house, hitherto unspotted; tear and trample on that document of shame. I know that I ask not in my own name alone, but in the names of all soldiers here present and nobles. It pertains to us also to consider our own fate. Gracious prince, do not do this; there is still time! Spare yourself, spare us, spare the Commonwealth!"

"Do it not! Have pity, have pity!" called hundreds of voices.

All the colonels sprang from their places and went toward him; and the gray Stankyevich knelt down in the middle of the hall between the two arms of the table, and then was heard more loudly: "Do that not! spare us!"

Radzivill raised his powerful head, and lightnings of wrath began to fly over his forehead; suddenly he burst out, -

"Does it become you, gentlemen, first of all to give an example of insubordination? Does it become soldiers to desert their leader, their hetman, and bring forward protests? Do you wish to be my conscience? Do you wish to teach me how to act for the good of the country? This is not a diet, and you are not called here to vote; but before God I take the responsibility!"

And he struck his broad breast with his fist, and looking with flashing glance on the officers, after a while he shouted again: "Whoso is not with me is against me! I knew you, I knew what would happen! But know ye that the sword is hanging over your heads!"

"Gracious prince! our hetman!" implored old Stankyevich, "spare yourself and spare us!"

But his speech was interrupted by Stanislav Skshetuski, who seizing his own hair with both hands, began to cry with despairing voice: "Do not implore him; that is vain. He has long cherished this dragon in his heart! Woe to thee, O Commonwealth! woe to us all!"

"Two dignitaries at the two ends of the Commonwealth have sold the country!" cried Yan Skshetuski. "A curse on this house, shame and God's anger!"

Hearing this, Zagloba shook himself free from amazement and burst out: "Ask him how great was the bribe he took from the Swedes? How much have they paid him? How much have they promised him yet? Oh, gentlemen, here is a Judas Iscariot. May you die in despair, may your race perish, may the devil tear out your soul, O traitor, traitor, thrice traitor!"

With this Stankyevich, in an ecstasy of despair, drew the colonel's baton from his belt, and threw it with a rattle at the feet of the prince. Mirski threw his next; the third was Yuzefovich; the fourth, Hoshchyts; the fifth, pale as a corpse, Volodyovski; the sixth, Oskyerko, – and the batons rolled on the floor. Meanwhile in that den of the lion these terrible words were repeated before the eyes of the lion from more and more mouths every moment: "Traitor! traitor!"

All the blood rushed to the head of the haughty magnate. He grew blue; it seemed that he would tumble next moment a corpse under the table.

"Ganhoff and Kmita, to me!" bellowed he, with a terrible voice.

At that moment four double doors leading to the hall opened with a crash, and in marched divisions of Scottish infantry, terrible, silent, musket in hand. Ganhoff led them from the main door.

"Halt!" cried the prince. Then he turned to the colonels: "Whoso is with me, let him go to the right side of the hall!"

"I am a soldier, I serve the hetman; let God be my judge!" said Kharlamp, passing to the right side.

"And I!" added Myeleshko. "Not mine will be the sin!"

"I protested as a citizen; as a soldier I must obey," added a third, Nyevyarovski, who, though he had thrown down his baton before, was evidently afraid of Radzivill now.

After them passed over a number of others, and quite a large group of nobles; but Mirski, the highest in office, and Stankyevich, the oldest in years, Hoshchyts, Volodyovski, and Oskyerko remained where they were, and with them the two Skshetuskis, Zagloba, and a great majority as well of the officers of various heavy and light squadrons as of nobles. The Scottish infantry surrounded them like a wall.

Kmita, the moment the prince proposed the toast in honor of Karl Gustav, sprang up from his seat with all the guests, stared fixedly and stood as if turned to stone, repeating with pallid lips, "God! God! God! what have I done?"

At the same time a low voice, but for his ear distinct, whispered near by, "Pan Andrei!"

He seized suddenly his hair with his hands. "I am cursed for the ages! May the earth swallow me!"

A flame flashed out on Olenka's face; her eyes bright as stars were fixed on Kmita. "Shame to those who remain with the hetman! Choose! O God, All Powerful! – What are you doing? Choose!"

"Jesus! O Jesus!" cried Kmita.

Meanwhile the hall was filled with cries. Others had thrown their batons at the feet of the prince, but Kmita did not join them; he did not move even when the prince shouted, "Ganhoff and Kmita, to me!" nor when the Scottish infantry entered the hall; and he stood torn with suffering and despair, with wild look, with blue lips.

Suddenly he turned to Panna Billevich and stretched his hands to her. "Olenka! Olenka!" repeated he, with a sorrowful groan, like a child whom some wrong is confronting.

But she drew back with aversion and fear in her face. "Away, traitor!" she answered with force.

At that moment Ganhoff commanded, "Forward!" and the division of Scots surrounding the prisoners moved toward the door.

Kmita began to follow them like one out of his mind, not knowing where he was going or why he was going.

The banquet was ended.

CHAPTER XV

That same night the prince held a long consultation with the voevoda of Venden and with the Swedish envoys. The result of the treaty had disappointed his expectations, and disclosed to him a threatening future. It was the prince's plan to make the announcement in time of feasting, when minds are excited and inclined to agreement. He expected opposition in every event, but he counted on adherents also; meanwhile the energy of the protest had exceeded his reckoning. Save a few tens of Calvinist nobles and a handful of officers of foreign origin, who as strangers could have no voice in the question, all declared against the treaty concluded with Karl Gustav, or rather with his field-marshal and brother-in-law, Pontus de la Gardie.

The prince had given orders, it is true, to arrest the stubborn officers of the army, but what of that? What will the squadrons say? Will they not think of their colonels? Will they not rise in mutiny to rescue their officers by force? If they do, what will remain to the proud prince beyond a few dragoon regiments and foreign infantry? Then the whole country, all the armed nobles, and Sapyeha, voevoda of Vityebsk, – a terrible opponent of the house of Radzivill, ready to fight with the whole world in the name of the unity of the Commonwealth? Other colonels whose heads he cannot cut off, and Polish squadrons will go to Sapyeha, who will stand at the head of all the forces of the country, and Prince Radzivill will see himself without an army, without adherents, without significance. What will happen then?

These were terrible questions, for the position was terrible. The prince knew well that if he were deserted the treaty on which he had toiled so much in secret would by the force of events lose all meaning and the Swedes would despise him, or take revenge for the discovered deceit. But he had given them his Birji as a guaranty of his loyalty; by that he had weakened himself the more.

Karl Gustav was ready to scatter rewards and honors with both hands for a powerful Radzivill, but Radzivill weak and deserted by all he would despise; and if the changing wheel of fortune should send victory to Yan Kazimir, final destruction would come to that lord who this day in the morning had no equal in the Commonwealth.

When the envoys and the voevoda of Venden had gone, the prince seized with both hands his head weighed down with care, and began to walk with swift steps through the room. From without came the voices of the Scottish guards and the rattle of the departing carriages of the nobles. They drove away quickly and hurriedly, as if a pest had fallen on the lordly castle of Kyedani. A terrible disquiet rent the soul of Radzivill. At times it seemed to him that besides himself there was some other person who walked behind him and whispered in his ear, "Abandonment, poverty, and infamy as well!" But he, the voevoda of Vilna and grand hetman, was already trampled upon and humiliated! Who would have admitted yesterday that in all Kyedani, in Lithuania, nay, in the whole world, there could be found a man who would dare to shout before his eyes, "Traitor!" Nevertheless he had heard it, and he lives yet, and they who spoke that word are living too. Perhaps if he were to re-enter that hall of the banquet he would still hear as an echo among the cornices and under the vaults, "Traitor! traitor!"

And wild, mad rage seized at moments the breast of the oligarch. His nostrils dilated, his eyes shot lightnings, veins came out on his forehead. Who here dares to oppose his will? His enraged mind brought before his eyes the picture of punishments and torments for rebels who had the daring not to follow his feet like a dog. And he saw their blood flowing from the axes of executioners, he heard the crunching of their bones broken by the wheel, and he took delight in and sated himself with visions of blood.

But when more sober judgment reminded him that behind those rebels is an army, that he cannot take their heads with impunity, an unendurable and hellish unquiet came back and filled his soul, and some one whispered anew in his ear, "Abandonment, poverty, judgment, and infamy!"

How is that? Is it not permitted to Radzivill to decide the fate of the country, – to retain it for Yan Kazimir or give it to Karl Gustav, – to give, to convey, to present, to whom it may please him?

The magnate looked before himself with amazement.

Who then are the Radzivills? Who were they yesterday? What was said everywhere in Lithuania? Was that all deception? Will not Prince Boguslav join the grand hetman with his regiments, after him his uncle the Elector of Brandenberg, and after all three Karl Gustav, the Swedish king, with all his victorious power, before which recently all Germany trembled through the length and the breadth of it? Did not the Polish Commonwealth itself extend its arms to the new master, and yield at the mere report of the approach of the lion of the North? Who will offer resistance to that unrestrained power?

On one side the King of Sweden, the Elector of Brandenberg, the Radzivills, in case of necessity Hmelnitski too, with all his power, and the hospodar of Wallachia, and Rakotsy of Transylvania, – almost half Europe; on the other side the voevoda of Vityebsk with Mirski, Pan Stankyevich, and those three nobles who had just come from Lukovo, and also a few rebellious squadrons! What is that? – a jest, an amusement.

Then suddenly the prince began to laugh loudly. "By Lucifer and all the Diet of hell, it must be that I have gone mad! Let them all go to the voevoda of Vityebsk!"

But after a while his face had grown gloomy again: "The powerful admit only powerful to alliance. Radzivill casting Lithuania at the feet of the Swedes will be sought for; Radzivill asking aid against Lithuania will be despised. What is to be done?"

The foreign officers will stay with him, but their power is not enough; and if the Polish squadrons go over to the voevoda of Vityebsk, he will have the fate of the country in his hands. Each foreign officer will carry out commands, it is true; but he will not devote his whole soul to the cause of Radzivill, he will not give himself to it with ardor, not merely as a soldier, but as an adherent. For devotion there is absolute need, not of foreigners, but of men of his own people to attract others by their names, by their bravery, by their reputation, by their daring example and readiness to do everything. He must have adherents in the country, even for show.

Who of his own men responded to the prince? Kharlamp, an old, worn-out soldier, good for service and nothing more; Nyevyarovski, not loved in the army and without influence; besides these a few others of still less distinction; no man of another kind, no man whom an army would follow, no man to be the apostle of a cause.

There remained Kmita, young, enterprising, bold, covered with great knightly glory, bearing a famous name, standing at the head of a powerful squadron, partly fitted out at his own expense, – a man as it were created to be the leader of all the bold and restless spirits in Lithuania, and withal full of ardor. If he should take up the cause of Radzivill, he would take it up with the faith which youth gives, he would follow his hetman blindly, and spread the faith in his name; and such an apostle means more than whole regiments, whole divisions of foreigners. He would be able to pour his faith into the heart of the young knighthood, to attract it and fill the camp of Radzivill with men.

But he too had hesitated evidently. He did not cast his baton, it is true, at the feet of the hetman, but he did not stand at his side in the first moment.

"It is impossible to reckon on any one, impossible to be sure of any man," thought the prince, gloomily. "They will all go to the voevoda of Vityebsk, and no man will wish to share with me."

"Infamy!" whispered his conscience.