Who struck the first blow and deprived a man of dear life?
Pan Mushalski pierced first with an arrow a young bey, with a purple kufi on his head, and dressed in a silver scaled armor, clear as moonlight. The painful shaft went under his left eye, and entered his head half the length of its shaft; he, throwing back his beautiful face and spreading his arms, flew from the saddle. The archer, putting his bow under his thigh, sprang forward and cut him yet with the sabre; then taking the bey’s excellent weapons, and driving his horse with the flat of his sword toward the castle, he called loudly in Arabic—
“I would that he were the Sultan’s own son. He would rot here before you would play the last kindya.”
When the Turks and Egyptians heard this they were terribly grieved, and two beys sprang at once toward Mushalski; but from one side Lusnia, who was wolf-like in fierceness, intercepted their way, and in the twinkle of an eye bit to death one of them. First he cut him in the hand; and when the bey stooped for his sabre, which had fallen, Lusnia almost severed his head with a terrible blow on the neck. Seeing which, the other turned his horse swift as wind to escape, but that moment Pan Mushalski took the bow again from under his thigh, and sent after the fugitive an arrow; it reached him in his flight, and sank almost to the feathers between his shoulders.
Pan Shmlud-Plotski was the third to finish his enemy, striking him with a sharp hammer on the helmet. He drove in with the blow the silver and velvet lining of the steel; and the bent point of the hammer stuck so tightly in the skull that Pan Plotski could not draw it forth for a time. Others fought with varied fortune; still, victory was mainly with the nobles, who were more skilled in fencing. But two dragoons fell from the powerful hand of Hamdi Bey, who slashed then Prince Ovsyani with a curved sword through the face, and stretched him on the field. Ovsyani moistened his native earth with his princely blood. Hamdi turned then to Pan Sheluta, whose horse had thrust his foot into the burrow of a hamster. Sheluta, seeing death inevitable, chose to meet the terrible horseman on foot, and sprang to the ground. But Hamdi, with the breast of his horse, overturned the Pole, and reached the arm of the falling man with the very end of his blade. The arm dropped; that instant Hamdi rushed farther through the field in search of opponents.
But in many there was not courage to measure with him, so greatly and evidently did he surpass all in strength. The wind raised his white burnoose on his shoulders, and bore it apart like the wings of a bird of prey; his gilt worked armor threw an ominous gleam on his almost black face, with its wild and flashing eyes; a curved sabre glittered above his head, like the sickle of the moon on a clear night.
The famed archer let out two arrows at him; but both merely sounded on his armor with a groaning, and fell without effect on the grass. Pan Mushalski began to hesitate whether to send forth a third shaft against the neck of the steed, or rush on the bey with his sabre. But while he was thinking of this on the way, the bey saw him and urged on his black stallion.
Both met in the middle of the field. Pan Mushalski, wishing to show his great strength and take Hamdi alive, struck up his sword with a powerful blow and closed with him; he seized the bey’s throat with one hand, with the other his pointed helmet, and drew him from his horse. But the girth of his own saddle broke; the incomparable bowman turned with it, and dropped to the ground. Hamdi struck the falling man with the hilt of his sword on the head and stunned him. The spahis and mamelukes, who had feared for Hamdi, shouted with joy; the Poles were grieved greatly. Then the opposing sides sprang toward one another in dense groups—one side to seize the bowman, the other to defend even his body.
So far the little knight had taken no part in the skirmish, for his dignity of colonel did not permit that; but seeing the fall of Mushalski and the preponderance of Hamdi, he resolved to avenge the archer and give courage to his own men. Inspired with this thought, he put spurs to his horse, and swept across the field as swiftly as a sparrow-hawk goes to a flock of plover, circling over stubble. Basia, looking through a glass, saw him from the battlements, and cried at once to Zagloba, who was near her—
“Michael is flying! Michael is flying!”
“You see him,” cried the old warrior. “Look carefully; see where he strikes the first blow. Have no fear!”
The glass shook in Basia’s hand. Though, as there was no discharge in the field yet from bows or janissary guns, she was not alarmed overmuch for the life of her husband, still, enthusiasm, curiosity, and disquiet seized her. Her soul and heart had gone out of her body that moment, and were flying after him. Her breast was heaving quickly; a bright flush covered her face. At one moment she had bent over the battlement so far that Zagloba seized her by the waist, lest she might fall to the fosse.
“Two are flying at Michael!” cried she.
“There will be two less!” said Zagloba.
Indeed, two spahis came out against the little knight. Judging from his uniform, they knew that he was a man of note, and seeing the small stature of the horseman they thought to win glory cheaply. The fools! they flew to sure death; for when they had drawn near he did not even rein in his horse,
