With Fire and Sword

"I see that you are seeking a quarrel."

"Maybe I am; and I will tell you this [here Kharlamp bent to the ear of Volodyovski and finished in a lower voice], that I'll trim your ears if you come in my way before Panna Anna."

Volodyovski began again to throw up the hatchet very diligently, as if that were the special time for such amusement, and answered in a tone of persuasiveness: "Oh, my benefactor, permit me to live a little yet; let me go!"

"Oh, no! Nothing will come of that; you won't escape me!" said Kharlamp, seizing the little knight by the sleeve.

"I will not get away from you," said Pan Michael, with a mild voice; "but now I am on service, and am going with the order of the prince my master. Let go my sleeve, let go, I beg you; for otherwise what shall I, poor devil! do unless I go at you with this hatchet and tumble you from the horse?"

Here the voice of Volodyovski, submissive at first, hissed with such venom that Kharlamp looked at him with involuntary astonishment and dropped his sleeve. "Oh, it is all one!" said he. "You will give me a chance in Warsaw, I'll look after you!"

"I won't hide; but how can we fight in Warsaw, be so kind as to instruct me. I have never been there yet in my life; I am a simple soldier, but I have heard of court-martials which execute a man for drawing his sabre in the presence of the king or during an interregnum."

"It is evident that you have never been in Warsaw, and that you are an ignorant clown, since you are afraid of court-martials and don't know that in the interregnum a chapter is in session with which the question is easier, and you may be sure they won't take my head for your ears."

"Thank you for the information, and I will ask you for information frequently; for I see that you are a man of no ordinary experience, and I, since I practise only the lowest of the rudiments, am barely able to make an adjective agree with a noun, and if I wanted to call (which God forbid) your Honor a fool, then I know that I should say 'stultus,' and not 'stulta' or 'stultum.'"

Here Volodyovski began again to throw up the hatchet, and Kharlamp was astonished again. The blood rushed to his face, and he pulled his sabre out of the scabbard; but in the twinkle of an eye the little knight, putting his hatchet under his knee, drew his own. For a moment they looked at each other, like two stags, with distended nostrils, and with fire in their eyes; but Kharlamp considered that he would have an affair with the voevoda himself if he fell upon his officer going with an order, therefore he sheathed his sabre.

"Oh, I'll find you, you son of a such a one!" said he.

"You'll find me, you'll find me, you fish-broth!" said the little knight.

And they parted, – one going to the cavalcade, the other to the squadrons, which had approached considerably during this time, so that through the clouds of dust was heard the clatter of the hoofs on the hard road. Volodyovski straightened the cavalry and the infantry to the proper line, and moved to the head. After a while Zagloba trotted up to him.

"What did that scarecrow of the sea want of you?" asked he of Volodyovski.

"Oh, nothing! – he called me out to a duel."

"Here is trouble for you; he will punch a hole through you with his nose. Look out, Pan Michael, that you don't cut off the biggest nose in the Commonwealth, for you will have to raise a separate mound over it. Happy is the voevoda of Vilna! Others must send scouting-parties out to look for the enemy, but this one could scent them for miles. But why did he challenge you?"

"Because I rode by the carriage of Anusia Borzobogata."

"You ought to have told him to go to Pan Longin at Zamost. He would have dressed him with pepper and ginger. That fish-broth fellow has struck badly; it is evident that he has less luck than his nose."

"I said nothing to him about Pan Podbipienta," said Volodyovski, "for he might have dropped me. I'll pay court now to Anusia with redoubled fervor out of spite. I want to have my sport too; what better employment can we have in Warsaw?"

"We'll find it, Pan Michael, we'll find it," said Zagloba, winking. "When in my younger years I was a deputy from the squadron in which I served, I travelled through the whole country, but such life as I found in Warsaw I found nowhere else."

"You say it is different from what we have in the Trans-Dnieper?"

"Of course it is!"

"I am very curious," said Pan Michael. After a while he added: "Still, I'll trim the mustaches of that fish-broth, for they are too long."

CHAPTER XLIV

A number of weeks passed. The nobles assembled in greater and greater numbers for the election. The population of the city increased tenfold; for with the crowds of nobles poured in thousands of merchants and shopkeepers of the whole world, from distant Persia to England beyond the sea. On the field of Vola a booth was built for the senate, and around it whitened already thousands of tents, with which the spacious meadows were entirely covered. No one could tell yet which of the two candidates-Prince Kazimir, the cardinal, or Karl Ferdinand, the bishop of Plotsk-would be elected. On both sides great were the efforts and exertions made. Thousands of pamphlets were given to the world, relating the merits and defects of the candidates. Both had numerous and powerful adherents. On the side of Karl stood, as is known, Prince Yeremi, who was the more terrible for his opponents, as it was always likely that he would draw after him the inferior nobles, who were enamoured of him; and with the inferior nobles lay the ultimate decision. But neither did Kazimir lack power. Seniority was in his favor. On his side was the influence of the chancellor; the primate appeared to incline to him. On his side stood the majority of the magnates, each of whom had numerous clients; and among the magnates also was Prince Dominik Zaslavski Ostrogski, voevoda of Sandomir, with greatly injured reputation after Pilavtsi and even threatened with prosecution, but always the greatest lord in the Commonwealth, nay, even in all Europe, and able at any moment to throw the immense weight of his wealth into the scale of his candidate.

Still the adherents of Kazimir more than once had bitter hours of doubt; for as has been said, everything depended on the inferior nobles, who, beginning from the 4th of October, had camped in crowds around Warsaw and were coming still in thousands from every side of the Commonwealth, and who in an incalculable majority declared for Prince Karl, attracted by the magic of Vishnyevetski's name and the liberality of the prince in public objects. Karl was a good manager and wealthy; he did not hesitate at that moment to devote considerable sums to the formation of new regiments which were to be placed under command of Yeremi. Kazimir would have followed his example willingly; it was certainly not greed that held him back, but just the opposite, – excessive liberality, the immediate result of which was an insufficiency, and continual lack of money in his treasury.

Meanwhile both sides were canvassing. Every day messengers were flying between Nyeporente and Yablonna. Kazimir in the name of his own seniority and brotherly affection adjured Karl to resign; but the bishop held back, answering that it would not become him to contemn, the fortune which might meet him, since that fortune was in the free gift of the Commonwealth, and was his to whom the Lord had designed it. Time passed; the term of six weeks was approaching, and together with it the Cossack storm. News had come that Hmelnitski, having raised the siege of Lvoff, which had ransomed itself after a number of assaults, had invested Zamost, and night and day was storming that last rampart of the Commonwealth.

It was said too that besides the delegates whom Hmelnitski had sent to Warsaw with a letter and declaration that as a noble of Poland he would give his vote to Kazimir, there were nobles hidden among the crowd, and that the city itself was full of disguised Cossack elders whom no one could detect, for they had come like regular and wealthy nobles, differing in nothing, even in speech, from other electors, especially those from the Russian provinces. Some, as was said, had crept in through simple curiosity to look at the election and Warsaw; others to spy, to obtain news, to hear talk about the war, – how many troops the Commonwealth thought of putting in the field, and what grants it proposed for the levies. Perhaps there was much truth in the reports concerning these guests; for among the Zaporojian elders were many nobles who had become Cossacks, who had picked up some Latin and therefore were not to be recognized in any way. Besides, in the distant steppes Latin did not flourish as a rule, and such princes as the Kurtsevichi did not know it any better than Bogun and other atamans.

But reports like these with which the election field as well as the city were filled, together with news of the movements of Hmelnitski and the Cossack-Tartar expeditions, – which had reached, it was said, the Vistula, – filled people's minds with alarm, and more than once became causes of tumult. In the crowd of nobles to cast on a man the suspicion of being a Zaporojian in disguise was enough to insure his being sabred into small pieces before he could show who he was. In this way innocent men might perish and the dignity of deliberations be destroyed, especially since with the custom of the time sobriety was not too much observed. The chapter "propter securitatem loci" (concerning public peace) was inadequate to stop the endless quarrels in which people were cut down for the slightest cause. But if those tumults, sabre-slashings, and drinking-bouts alarmed orderly people, penetrated with a love of good and peace, through the danger with which they threatened the country, on the other hand the reckless, the disorderly, the gamblers and disturbers felt as it were in their element; they considered this as their own special season, their day of harvest, and the more boldly permitted themselves various misdeeds.

It is needless to add that among these Zagloba was first. His primacy was secured by his great fame as a knight, his unquenchable thirst upheld by a supply of drink, a tongue so tanned that it had no equal, and by a self-confidence which nothing could shake. But he had at times his attacks of "melancholy;" then he shut himself up in a room or a tent, and did not go out, or if he did go he was in angry humor, inclined to quarrels and genuine fighting. It happened, in fact, that in such a humor he hacked up Pan Dunchevski badly, only because he had knocked against his sabre in passing. At such times he endured only the presence of Pan Michael, to whom he complained that a longing for Skshetuski and the "poor young lady" was devouring him. "We have deserted her, Pan Michael," he used to say; "we have betrayed her like Judas into godless hands. Don't excuse yourself to me with your nemine excepto. What is happening to her, Pan Michael, tell me that?"

In vain Pan Michael explained that had it not been for Pilavtsi, they would have been searching for "the poor young lady," but that now when the whole power of Hmelnitski separated them from her it was an impossible thing. Zagloba did not yield himself to consolation, but fell into still greater passion, cursing by what the world stands on, – "Feather-bed," "Baby," and "Latin."[16 - Nicknames given by Hmelnitski to the three Polish commanders.]

But these periods of gloom were of short duration. When they were over Zagloba, as if wishing to reward himself for lost time, generally revelled and drank more than ever. He spent his time in taverns in company with the mightiest drinkers or with women of the capital, in which occupation Pan Michael held him trusty companionship.

Pan Michael, a soldier and a splendid officer, possessed not, however, a farthing's worth of that seriousness which misfortune and suffering had developed, for instance, in Skshetuski. Volodyovski understood his duty to the Commonwealth in this way: he killed whomsoever he was ordered to kill, – cared for naught else. He knew nothing of public questions; he was always ready to bewail a military defeat, but it never entered his head that quarrels and tumults were as harmful to public affairs as defeats; in one word, he was a thoughtless young man who, having entered the bustle of the capital, sank in it to his ears, and stuck like a thistle to Zagloba, for he was his master in license. He went therefore with him among the nobles, to whom Zagloba at his cups related things uncreated, winning at the same time adherents for Prince Karl; he drank with him, protected him when necessary; they both circled around in the field of election and the city like flies in a pot, and there was no corner into which they did not crawl. They were at Nyeporente and in Yablonna; they were at all the feasts and dinners given by magnates; they were at taverns, – they were everywhere, and took part in everything. Pan Michael's youthful hand was restive; he wanted to exhibit himself, and to prove at the same time that the nobility of the Ukraine was better than any other and that the soldiers of the prince were higher than all. They went therefore to seek adventures on purpose among the Poles of the kingdom, as the most skilled with the sword, and specially among the partisans of Prince Dominik Zaslavski, for whom both felt a particular hatred. They engaged only with the most celebrated champions, men of undoubted and settled fame, and plotted the quarrels beforehand. "You pick the quarrel," said Pan Michael, "and then I will step in." Zagloba, very skilful in fence and by no means timid in duelling with a brother noble, did not always agree to have a substitute, especially in affairs with adherents of Zaslavski; but when it was a question with some famous swordsman, he halted in the dispute; if the noble was eager for the sword and challenged, Zagloba said: "My good sir, I should be without conscience if I were to expose you to evident death by fighting with you myself; better try my little son and pupil here, and I am not sure that you will be able to manage him." After such words Volodyovski appeared on the scene with his little upturned mustaches, nose in the air, and gaping face. Whether accepted or not, he opened the fight, and being in truth a master above masters, he generally stretched out his antagonist after a few blows. In this fashion the two found sport from which their fame increased among restless spirits and the nobles, but especially the fame of Pan Zagloba, for it was said: "If the pupil is such a man, what must the master be!" Pan Kharlamp was the one person that Volodyovski could not find for a long time. He thought: "Perhaps they have sent him back to Lithuania on business of some sort."

In this way nearly six weeks had gone, during which time public affairs had advanced notably. The protracted battle of the candidate brothers, the efforts of their adherents, the fever and storm of passion among partisans had passed, leaving scarcely trace or memory. It was now known to all that Yan Kazimir would be chosen; for Prince Karl had yielded to his brother, and resigned the candidature of his own good-will. It is a wonderful thing that the voice of Hmelnitski had great weight; for it was hoped on every side that he would yield to the authority of the king, especially when chosen according to his wish. These previsions were justified in great part. But for Vishnyevetski-who, like Cato of old, ceased not one moment from repeating that the Zaporojian Carthage must be destroyed-this turn of affairs was a fresh blow. Negotiations must be the order of the day. The prince knew, it is true, that these negotiations would either result in nothing from the start or would be broken off soon from the nature of the case, and saw war in the future; but disquiet seized him at the thought: "What will be the issue of that war? After negotiations the justified Hmelnitski will be still stronger, and the Commonwealth still weaker. And who will lead its forces against a chief so famous as Hmelnitski? Will not there be new defeats and new catastrophes which will exhaust its forces to the last?" For the prince did not deceive himself, and knew that to him, the most eager adherent of Karl, the command would not be given. Kazimir had promised, it is true, to favor his brother's adherents as much as his own. Kazimir was high-souled, but he was a partisan of the chancellor's policy. Some one else will receive the command, not the prince; and woe to the Commonwealth if he be not a leader superior to Hmelnitski! At this thought a twofold pain straitened the soul of Yeremi, – fear for the future of the country, and the unendurable feeling of a man who sees that his services are passed over, that justice will not be done him, and that others will raise their heads above his. He would not have been Yeremi Vishnyevetski if he had not been proud. He felt within himself the power to wield the baton, and he had earned the baton; therefore he suffered doubly.

It was reported among officers that the prince would not wait for the close of the election, and would leave Warsaw; but that was not true. The prince not only did not leave, but he visited, in Nyeporente, Prince Kazimir, who received him with unbounded favor; then he returned to the city for a prolonged stay, caused by military affairs. It was a question of finding support for the army, which the prince urged diligently. Besides, new regiments of dragoons and infantry were equipped at Karl's expense. Some had been sent to Russia already; others were to be drilled. For this purpose the prince sent out on every side officers expert in organizing troops. Kushel and Vershul had been sent, and finally the turn came for Volodyovski. One day he was summoned to the prince, who gave him the following order: -

"You will go by way of Babitse and Lipki to Zaborovo, where horses for the regiment are waiting; you will inspect them, reject those unfit, and pay Pan Tshaskovski for those accepted; then you will bring them for the soldiers. The money you will receive here in Warsaw from the paymaster on this my order."

Volodyovski set about the work briskly. He took the money, and on the same day he and Zagloba with eight others set out with a wagon bearing the money. They moved slowly, for that side of Warsaw was swarming with nobles, attendants, and horses; the villages as far as Babitse were so packed that in every cottage there were guests. It was easy to meet adventures in a press of people of various humors; and in spite of their greatest efforts and modest bearing, our two friends did not escape them.

On reaching Babitse they saw before the public house a number of nobles who were just mounting to continue their journey. The two parties, after saluting each other, were about to pass, when suddenly one of the riders looked at Volodyovski, and without saying a word rode up to him on a trot.

"Ah, you are here, my little fellow!" cried he. "You have been skulking, but I have found you. You won't escape me this time! Eh, gentlemen!" shouted he to his comrades, "just wait a bit. I have something to say to this little stub of an officer, and I should like to have you as witnesses of my words."

Volodyovski smiled with pleasure, for he recognized Pan Kharlamp. "God is my witness that I was not hiding," said he; "more than that, I was looking for you myself to ask if you still cherished rancor against me, but somehow we couldn't meet."

"Pan Michael," whispered Zagloba, "you are on duty."

"I remember," muttered Volodyovski.

"Come to business!" roared Kharlamp. "Gentlemen, I have promised this milksop, this bald mustache, to clip his ears for him, and I'll clip them as true as I am Kharlamp. Be witnesses, gentlemen, and you, youngster, come up here!"

"I cannot, as God is dear to me, I cannot," said Volodyovski; "let me off even for a couple of days."

"Why can you not? You are frightened, I suppose. If you do not meet me at once, I will slap you so with my sword that you'll think of your grandfather and grandmother. Oh, you dodger, you venomous gadfly, you know how to get in the way, you know how to buzz, you know how to bite, but when it comes to the sabre you are not there."

Here Zagloba interfered. "It seems to me that you are pressing matters rather far," said he to Kharlamp, "and look out that this fly does not sting; if he does, no plaster will help you. Tfu! the devil take it, don't you see that this officer is on duty? Look at that wagon with money which we are taking to the regiment, and understand that his person is not at his own disposal and he cannot meet you. Whoever can't understand that is a dunce and not a soldier. We serve under the voevoda of Rus, and we have fought men different from you; but to-day it is impossible, and what is deferred will not escape."

"It is certain," said one of Kharlamp's comrades, "that they are transporting money; he cannot meet you."

"What is their money to me?" screamed the irrepressible Kharlamp; "let him stand before me or I'll slap him with my sword."

"I will not meet you to-day, but I give you the word of a soldier to meet you in three or four days, wherever you please, the moment I have carried out my orders. And if this does not satisfy you, gentlemen, I shall give order to touch the triggers, for I shall believe that I have to do not with soldiers, but with brigands. Take yourselves off then to all the devils, for I have no time to loiter."

On hearing this, the dragoons of the escort turned the muzzles of their guns on the aggressors. That movement, as well as the decisive words of Pan Michael, produced an evident impression on the comrades of Kharlamp. "Oh, let him off!" said they. "You are a soldier yourself, you know what service is; it is certain that you will receive satisfaction. He is a bold piece, like all men of the Russian squadron; restrain yourself, since we ask you."