The Deluge. Vol. 2

The officers looked on Miller with wonder, so little accustomed were they to magnanimity from him. At last Sadovski said, —

"Nothing better could be done, for it will close at once the mouths of the Polish colonels who lay claim to the silver. In the fortress it will surely make a good impression."

"The death of that Kmita will make the best impression," answered Count Veyhard. "I hope that Kuklinovski has already torn him out of his skin."

"I think that he is no longer alive," said Miller. "But that name reminds me of our loss, which nothing can make good. That was the greatest gun in the whole artillery of his grace. I do not hide from you, gentlemen, that all my hopes were placed on it. The breach was already made, terror was spreading in the fortress. A couple of days longer and we should have moved to a storm. Now all our labor is useless, all our exertions vain. They will repair the wall in one day. And the guns which we have now are no better than those of the fortress, and can be easily dismounted. No larger ones can be had anywhere, for even Marshal Wittemberg hasn't them. The more I ponder over it, the more the disaster seems dreadful. And to think that one man did this, – one dog! one Satan! I shall go mad! To all the horned devils!"

Here Miller struck the table with his fist, for unrestrained anger had seized him, the more desperately because he was powerless. After a while he cried, —

"But what will the king say when he hears of this loss?" After a while he added: "And what shall we do? We cannot gnaw away that cliff with our teeth. Would that the plague might strike those who persuaded me to come to this fortress!"

Having said this, he took a crystal goblet, and in his excitement hurled it to the floor so that the crystal was broken into small bits.

This unbecoming frenzy, more befitting a peasant than a warrior holding such a high office, turned all hearts from him, and soured good-humor completely.

"Give counsel, gentlemen!" cried Miller.

"It is possible to counsel, but only in calmness," answered the Prince of Hesse.

Miller began to puff and blow out his anger through his nostrils. After a time he grew calm, and passing his eyes over those present as if encouraging them with a glance, he said, —

"I ask your pardon, gentlemen, but my anger is not strange. I will not mention those places which, when I had taken command after Torstenson, I captured, for I do not wish, in view of the present disaster, to boast of past fortune. All that is done at this fortress simply passes reason. But still it is necessary to take counsel. For that purpose I have summoned you. Deliberate, then, and what the majority of us determine at this council will be done."

"Let your worthiness give us the subject for deliberation," said the Prince of Hesse. "Have we to deliberate only concerning the capture of the fortress, or also concerning this, whether it is better to withdraw?"

Miller did not wish to put the question so clearly, or at least he did not wish the "either – or," to come first from his mouth; therefore he said, —

"Let each speak clearly what he thinks. It should be a question for us of the profit and praise of the king."

But none of the officers wished more than Miller to appear first with the proposition to retreat, therefore there was silence again.

"Pan Sadovski," said Miller after a while, in a voice which he tried to make agreeable and kind, "you say what you think more sincerely than others, for your reputation insures you against all suspicion."

"I think, General," answered the colonel, "that Kmita was one of the greatest soldiers of this age, and that our position is desperate."

"But you were in favor of withdrawing from the fortress?"

"With permission of your worthiness, I was only in favor of not beginning the siege. That is a thing quite different."

"Then what do you advise now?"

"Now I give the floor to Count Veyhard."

Miller swore like a pagan.

"Count Veyhard will answer for this unfortunate affair," said he.

"My counsels have not all been carried out," answered the count, insolently. "I can boldly cast responsibility from myself. There were men who with a wonderful, in truth an inexplicable, good-will for the priests, dissuaded his worthiness from all severe measures. My advice was to hang those envoy priests, and I am convinced that if this had been done terror would have opened to us before this time the gates of that hen-house."

Here the count looked at Sadovski; but before the latter had answered, the Prince of Hesse interfered: "Count, do not call that fortress a hen-house, for the more you decrease its importance the more you increase our shame."

"Nevertheless I advised to hang the envoys. Terror and always terror, that is what I repeated from morning till night; but Pan Sadovski threatened resignation, and the priests went unharmed."

"Go, Count, to-day to the fortress," answered Sadovski, "blow up with powder their greatest gun as Kmita did ours, and I guarantee that, that will spread more terror than a murderous execution of envoys."

The count turned directly to Miller: "Your worthiness I thought we had come here for counsel and not for amusement."

"Have you an answer to baseless reproaches?" asked Miller.

"I have, in spite of the joyousness of these gentlemen, who might save their humor for better times."

"Oh, son of Laertes, famous for stratagems!" exclaimed the Prince of Hesse.

"Gentlemen," answered the count, "it is universally known that not Minerva but Mars is your guardian deity; but since Mars has not favored you, and you have renounced your right of speech, let me speak."

"The mountain is beginning to groan, and soon we shall see the small tail of a mouse," said Sadovski.

"I ask for silence!" said Miller, severely. "Speak, Count, but keep in mind that up to this moment your counsels have given bitter fruit."

"Which, though it is winter, we must eat like mouldy biscuits," put in the Prince of Hesse.

"This explains why your princely highness drinks so much wine," said Count Veyhard; "and though it does not take the place of native wit, it helps you to a happy digestion of even disgrace. But no matter! I know well that there is a party in the fortress which is long desirous of surrender, and that only our weakness on one side and the superhuman stubbornness of the prior on the other keep it in check. New terror will give this party new power; for this purpose we should show that we make no account of the loss of the gun, and storm the more vigorously."

"Is that all?"

"Even if it were all, I think that such counsel is more in accordance with the honor of Swedish soldiers than barren jests at cups, or than sleeping after drinking-bouts. But that is not all. We should spread the report among our soldiers, and especially among the Poles, that the men at work now making a mine have discovered the old underground passage leading to the cloister and the church."

"That is good counsel," said Miller.

"When this report is spread among the soldiers and the Poles, the Poles themselves will persuade the monks to surrender, for it is a question with them as with the monks, that that nest of superstitions should remain intact."

"For a Catholic that is not bad!" muttered Sadovski.

"If he served the Turks he would call Rome a nest of superstitions," said the Prince of Hesse.

"Then, beyond doubt, the Poles will send envoys to the priests," continued Count Veyhard, – "that party in the cloister, which is long anxious for surrender will renew its efforts under the influence of fear; and who knows but its members will force the prior and the stubborn to open the gates?"

"The city of Priam will perish through the cunning of the divine son of Laertes," declaimed the Prince of Hesse.

"As God lives, a real Trojan history, and he thinks he has invented something new!" said Sadovski.

But the advice pleased Miller, for in very truth it was not bad. The party which the count spoke of existed really in the cloister. Even some priests of weaker soul belonged to it. Besides, fear might extend among the garrison, including even those who so far were ready to defend it to the last drop of blood.

"Let us try, let us try!" said Miller, who like a drowning man seized every plank, and from despair passed easily to hope. "But will Kuklinovski or Zbrojek agree to go again as envoys to the cloister, or will they believe in that passage, and will they inform the priests of it?"

"In every case Kuklinovski will agree," answered the count; "but it is better that he should believe really in the existence of the passage."

At that moment they heard the tramp of a horse in front of the quarters.

"There, Pan Zbrojek has come!" said the Prince of Hesse, looking through the window.

A moment later spurs rattled, and Zbrojek entered, or rather rushed into the room. His face was pale, excited, and before the officers could ask the cause of his excitement the colonel cried, —

"Kuklinovski is no longer living!"

"How? What do you say? What has happened?" exclaimed Miller.

"Let me catch breath," said Zbrojek, "for what I have seen passes imagination."

"Talk more quickly. Has he been murdered?" cried all.

"By Kmita," answered Zbrojek.

The officers all sprang from their seats, and began to look at Zbrojek as at a madman; and he, while blowing in quick succession bunches of steam from his nostrils, said, —

"If I had not seen I should not have believed, for that is not a human power. Kuklinovski is not living, three soldiers are killed, and of Kmita not a trace. I know that he was a terrible man. His reputation is known in the whole country. But for him, a prisoner and bound, not only to free himself, but to kill the soldiers and torture Kuklinovski to death, – that a man could not do, only a devil!"

"Nothing like that has ever happened; that's impossible of belief!" whispered Sadovski.

"That Kmita has shown what he can do," said the Prince of Hesse. "We did not believe the Poles yesterday when they told us what kind of bird he was; we thought they were telling big stories, as is usual with them."

"Enough to drive a man mad," said the count.

Miller seized his head with his hands, and said nothing. When at last he raised his eyes, flashes of wrath were crossing in them with flashes of suspicion.

"Pan Zbrojek," said he, "though he were Satan and not a man, he could not do this without some treason, without assistance. Kmita had his admirers here; Kuklinovski his enemies, and you belong to the number."

Zbrojek was in the full sense of the word an insolent soldier; therefore when he heard an accusation directed against himself, he grew still paler, sprang from his place, approached Miller, and halting in front of him looked him straight in the eyes.

"Does your worthiness suspect me?" inquired he.

A very oppressive moment followed. The officers present had not the slightest doubt were Miller to give an affirmative answer something would follow terrible and unparalled in the history of camps. All hands rested on their rapier hilts. Sadovski even drew his weapon altogether.

But at that moment the officers saw before the window a yard filled with Polish horsemen. Probably they also had come with news of Kuklinovski, but in case of collision they would stand beyond doubt on Zbrojek's side. Miller too saw them, and though the paleness of rage had come on his face, still he restrained himself, and feigning to see no challenge in Zbrojek's action, he answered in a voice which he strove to make natural, —

"Tell in detail how it happened."

Zbrojek stood for a time yet with nostrils distended, but he too remembered himself; and then his thoughts turned in another direction, for his comrades, who had just ridden up, entered the room.

"Kuklinovski is murdered!" repeated they, one after another. "Kuklinovski is killed! His regiment will scatter! His soldiers are going wild!"

"Gentlemen, permit Pan Zbrojek to speak; he brought the news first," cried Miller.

After a while there was silence, and Zbrojek spoke as follows, —

"It is known to you, gentlemen, that at the last council I challenged Kuklinovski on the word of a cavalier. I was an admirer of Kmita, it is true; but even you, though his enemies, must acknowledge that no common man could have done such a deed as bursting that cannon. It behooves us to esteem daring even in an enemy; therefore I offered him my hand, but he refused his, and called me a traitor. Then I thought to myself, 'Let Kuklinovski do what he likes with him.' My only other thought was this: 'If Kuklinovski acts against knightly honor in dealing with Kmita, the disgrace of his deed must not fall on all Poles, and among others on me.' For that very reason I wished surely to fight with Kuklinovski, and this morning taking two comrades, I set out for his camp. We come to his quarters; they say there, 'He is not at home.' I send to this place, – he is not here. At his quarters they tell us, 'He has not returned the whole night.' But they are not alarmed, for they think that he has remained with your worthiness. At last one soldier says, 'Last evening he went to that little barn in the field with Kmita, whom he was going to burn there.' I ride to the barn; the doors are wide open. I enter; I see inside a naked body hanging from a beam. 'That is Kmita,' thought I; but when my eyes have grown used to the darkness, I see that the body is some thin and bony one, and Kmita looked like a Hercules. It is a wonder to me that he could shrink so much in one night. I draw near – Kuklinovski!"

"Hanging from the beam?" asked Miller.

"Exactly! I make the sign of the cross, – I think, 'Is it witchcraft, an omen, deception, or what?' But when I saw three corpses of soldiers, the truth stood as if living before me. That terrible man had killed these, hung Kuklinovski, burned him like an executioner, and then escaped."

"It is not far to the Silesian boundary," said Sadovski.

A moment of silence followed. Every suspicion of Zbrojek's participation in the affair was extinguished in Miller's soul. But the event itself astonished and filled him with a certain undefined fear. He saw dangers rising around, or rather their terrible shadows, against which he knew not how to struggle; he felt that some kind of chain of failures surrounded him. The first links were before his eyes, but farther the gloom of the future was lying. Just such a feeling mastered him as if he were in a cracked house which might fall on his head any moment. Uncertainty crushed him with an insupportable weight, and he asked himself what he had to lay hands on.

Meanwhile Count Veyhard struck himself on the forehead. "As God lives," said he, "when I saw this Kmita yesterday it seemed as if I had known him somewhere. Now again I see before me that face. I remember the sound of his voice. I must have met him for a short time and in the dark, in the evening; but he is going through my head, – going – " Here he began to rub his forehead with his hand.

"What is that to us?" asked Miller; "you will not mend the gun, even should you remember; you will not bring Kuklinovski to life."

Here he turned to the officers. "Gentlemen, come with me, whoso wishes, to the scene of this deed."

All wished to go, for curiosity was exciting them. Horses were brought, and they moved on at a trot, the general at the head. When they came to the little barn they saw a number of tens of Polish horsemen scattered around that building, on the road, and along the field.

"What men are they?" asked Miller of Zbrojek.

"They must be Kuklinovski's; I tell your worthiness that those ragamuffins have simply gone wild."

Zbrojek then beckoned to one of the horsemen, —

"Come this way, come this way. Quickly!"

The soldier rode up.

"Are you Kuklinovski's men?"

"Yes."

"Where is the rest of the regiment?"

"They have run away. They refused to serve longer against Yasna Gora."

"What does he say?" asked Miller.

Zbrojek interpreted the words.

"Ask him where they went to."

Zbrojek repeated the question.

"It is unknown," said the soldier. "Some have gone to Silesia. Others said that they would serve with Kmita, for there is not another such colonel either among the Poles or the Swedes."

When Zbrojek interpreted these words to Miller, he grew serious. In truth, such men as Kuklinovski had were ready to pass over to the command of Kmita without hesitation. But then they might become terrible, if not for Miller's army, at least for his supplies and communication. A river of perils was rising higher and higher around the enchanted fortress.

Zbrojek, into whose head this idea must have come, said, as if in answer to these thoughts of Miller: "It is certain that everything is in a storm now in our Commonwealth. Let only such a Kmita shout, hundreds and thousands will surround him, especially after what he has done."

"But what can he effect?" asked Miller.

"Remember, your worthiness, that that man brought Hovanski to desperation, and Hovanski had, counting the Cossacks, six times as many men as we. Not a transport will come to us without his permission, the country houses are destroyed, and we are beginning to feel hunger. Besides, this Kmita may join with Jegotski and Kulesha; then he will have several thousand sabres at his call. He is a grievous man, and may become most harmful."

"Are you sure of your soldiers?"

"Surer than of myself," answered Zbrojek, with brutal frankness.

"How surer?"

"For, to tell the truth, we have all of us enough of this siege."

"I trust that it will soon come to an end."

"Only the question is: How? But for that matter to capture this fortress is at present as great a calamity as to retire from it."

Meanwhile they had reached the little barn. Miller dismounted, after him the officers, and all entered. The soldiers had removed Kuklinovski from the beam, and covering him with a rug laid him on his back on remnants of straw. The bodies of three soldiers lay at one side, placed evenly one by the other.

"These were killed with knives."

"But Kuklinovski?"

"There are no wounds on Kuklinovski, but his side is roasted and his mustaches daubed with pitch. He must have perished of cold or suffocation, for he holds his own cap in his teeth to this moment."

"Uncover him."

The soldier raised a corner of the rug, and a terrible face was uncovered, swollen, with eyes bursting out. On the remnants of his pitched mustaches were icicles formed from his frozen breath and mixed with soot, making as it were tusks sticking out of his mouth. That face was so revolting that Miller, though accustomed to all kinds of ghastliness, shuddered and said, —

"Cover it quickly. Terrible, terrible!"

Silence reigned in the barn.

"Why have we come here?" asked the Prince of Hesse, spitting. "I shall not touch food for a whole day."

All at once some kind of uncommon exasperation closely bordering on frenzy took possession of Miller. His face became blue, his eyes expanded, he began to gnash his teeth, a wild thirst for the blood of some one had seized him; then turning to Zbrojek, he screamed, —

"Where is that soldier who saw that Kuklinovski was in the barn? He must be a confederate!"

"I know not whether that soldier is here yet," answered Zbrojek. "All Kuklinovski's men have scattered like oxen let out from the yoke."

"Then catch him!" bellowed Miller, in fury.

"Catch him yourself!" cried Zbrojek, in similar fury.

And again a terrible outburst hung as it were on a spider-web over the heads of the Swedes and the Poles. The latter began to gather around Zbrojek, moving their mustaches threateningly and rattling their sabres.

During this noise the echoes of shots and the tramp of horses were heard, and into the barn rushed a Swedish officer of cavalry.

"General!" cried he. "A sortie from the cloister! The men working at the mine have been cut to pieces! A party of infantry is scattered!"

"I shall go wild!" roared Miller, seizing the hair of his wig. "To horse!"

In a moment they were all rushing like a whirlwind toward the cloister, so that lumps of snow fell like hail from the hoofs of their horses. A hundred of Sadovski's cavalry, under command of his brother, joined Miller and ran to assist. On the way they saw parties of terrified infantry fleeing in disorder and panic, so fallen were the hearts of the Swedish infantry, elsewhere unrivalled. They had left even trenches which were not threatened by any danger. The oncoming officers and cavalry trampled a few, and rode finally to within a furlong of the fortress, but only to see on the height as clearly as on the palm of the hand, the attacking party returning safely to the cloister; songs, shouts of joy, and laughter came from them to Miller's ears.

Single persons stood forth and threatened with bloody sabres in the direction of the staff. The Poles present at the side of the Swedish general recognized Zamoyski himself, who had led the sortie in person, and who, when he saw the staff, stopped and saluted it solemnly with his cap. No wonder he felt safe under cover of the fortress cannon.

And, in fact, it began to smoke on the walls, and iron flocks of cannon balls were flying with terrible whistling among the officers. Troopers tottered in their saddles, and groans answered whistles.

"We are under fire. Retreat!" commanded Sadovski.

Zbrojek seized the reins of Miller's horse. "General, withdraw! It is death here!"

Miller, as if he had become torpid, said not a word, and let himself be led out of range of the missiles. Returning to his quarters, he locked himself in, and for a whole day would see no man. He was meditating surely over his fame of Poliorcetes.

Count Veyhard now took all power in hand, and began with immense energy to make preparations for a storm. New breastworks were thrown up; the soldiers succeeding the miners broke the cliff unweariedly to prepare a mine. A feverish movement continued in the whole Swedish camp. It seemed that a new spirit had entered the besiegers, or that reinforcements had come. A few days later the news thundered through the Swedish and allied Polish camps that the miners had found a passage going under the church and the cloister, and that it depended now only on the good-will of the general to blow up the whole fortress.

Delight seized the soldiers worn out with cold, hunger, and fruitless toil. Shouts of: "We have Chenstohova! We'll blow up that hen-house!" ran from mouth to mouth. Feasting and drinking began.

The count was present everywhere; he encouraged the soldiers, kept them in that belief, repeated a hundred times daily the news of finding the passage, incited to feasting and frolics.

The echo of this gladness reached the cloister at last. News of the mines dug and ready to explode ran with the speed of lightning from rampart to rampart. Even the most daring were frightened. Weeping women began to besiege the prior's dwelling, to hold out to him their children when he appeared for a while, and cry, —

"Destroy not the innocent! Their blood will fall on thy head!"

The greater coward a man had been, the greater his daring now in urging Kordetski not to expose to destruction the sacred place, the capital of the Most Holy Lady.

Such grievous, painful times followed, for the unbending soul of our hero in a habit, as had not been till that hour. It was fortunate that the Swedes ceased their assaults, so as to prove more convincingly that they needed no longer either balls or cannon, that it was enough for them to ignite one little powder fuse. But for this very reason terror increased in the cloister. In the hour of deep night it seemed to some, the most timid, that they heard under the earth certain sounds, certain movements; that the Swedes were already under the cloister. Finally, a considerable number of the monks fell in spirit. Those, with Father Stradomski at the head of them, went to the prior and urged him to begin negotiations at once for surrender. The greater part of the soldiers went with them, and some of the nobles.

Kordetski appeared in the courtyard, and when the throng gathered around him in a close circle, he said, —

"Have we not sworn to one another to defend this holy place to the last drop of our blood? In truth, I tell you that if powder hurls us forth, only our wretched bodies, only the temporary covering, will fall away and return to the earth, but the souls will not return, – heaven will open above them, and they will enter into rejoicing and happiness, as into a sea without bounds. There Jesus Christ will receive them, and that Most Holy Mother will meet them, and they like golden bees will sit on her robe, and will sink in light and gaze on the face of the Lord."