Pan Michael

evidently whole divisions had run up to succor the miners. As Pan Michael had foreseen, confusion seized the janissaries, who, fearing to strike one another, shouted loudly, fired at random, and often in the air. The uproar and firing increased every moment. When martens, eager for blood, break into a sleeping henhouse at night, a mighty uproar and cackling rise in the quiet building: confusion like that set in all at once round the castle. The Turks began to hurl bombs at the walls, so as to clear up the darkness. Ketling pointed guns in the direction of the Turkish troops on guard, and answered with grapeshot. The Turkish approaches blazed; the walls blazed. In the town the alarm was beaten, for the people believed universally that the Turks had burst into the fortress. In the trenches the Turks thought that a powerful sortie was attacking all their works simultaneously; and a general alarm spread among them. Night favored the desperate enterprise of Pan Michael and Mushalski, for it had grown very dark. Discharges of cannon and grenades rent only for instants the darkness, which was afterward blacker. Finally, the sluices of heaven opened suddenly, and down rushed torrents of rain. Thunder outsounded the firing, rolled, grumbled, howled, and roused terrible echoes in the cliffs. Ketling sprang from the wall, ran at the head of fifteen or twenty men to the breach, and waited. But he did not wait long. Soon dark figures swarmed in between the timbers with which the opening was barred.

“Who goes there?” cried Ketling.

“Volodyovski,” was the answer. And the two knights fell into each other’s embrace.

“What! How is it there?” asked the officers, rushing out to the breach.

“Praise be to God! the miners are cut down to the last man; their tools are broken and scattered. Their work is for nothing.”

“Praise be to God! Praise be to God!”

“But is Mushalski with his men?”

“He is not here yet.”

“We might go to help him. Gracious gentlemen, who is willing?”

But that moment the breach was filled again. Mushalski’s men were returning in haste, and decreased in number considerably, for many of them had fallen from bullets. But they returned joyously, for with an equally favorable result. Some of the soldiers had brought back hammers, drills, and pickaxes as a proof that they had been in the mine itself.

“But where is Mushalski?” asked Pan Michael.

“True; where is Pan Mushalski?” repeated a number of voices.

The men under command of the celebrated bowman stared at one another; then a dragoon, who was wounded severely, said, with a weak voice⁠—

“Pan Mushalski has fallen. I saw him when he fell. I fell at his side; but I rose, and he remained.”

The knights were grieved greatly on hearing of the bowman’s death, for he was one of the first cavaliers in the armies of the Commonwealth. They asked the dragoon again how it had happened; but he was unable to answer, for blood was flowing from him in a stream, and he fell to the ground like a grain-sheaf.

The knights began to lament for Pan Mushalski.

“His memory will remain in the army,” said Pan Kvasibrotski, “and whoever survives the siege will celebrate his name.”

“There will not be born another such bowman,” said a voice.

“He was stronger in the arm than any man in Hreptyoff,” said the little knight. “He could push a thaler with his fingers into a new board. Pan Podbipienta, a Lithuanian, alone surpassed him in strength; but Podbipienta was killed in Zbaraj, and of living men none was so strong in the hands, unless perhaps Pan Adam.”

“A great, great loss,” said others. “Only in old times were such cavaliers born.”

Thus honoring the memory of the bowman, they mounted the wall. Pan Michael sent a courier at once with news to the starosta and the bishop that the mines were destroyed, and the miners cut down by a sortie. This news was received with great astonishment in the town, but⁠—who could expect it?⁠—with secret dislike. The starosta and the bishop were of opinion that those passing triumphs would not save Kamenyets, but only rouse the savage lion still more. They could be useful only in case surrender were agreed on in spite of them; therefore the two leaders determined to continue further negotiations.

But neither Pan Michael nor Ketling admitted even for a moment that the happy news could have such an effect. Nay, they felt certain now that courage would enter the weakest hearts, and that all would be inflamed with desire for a passionate resistance. It was impossible to take the town without taking the castle first; therefore if the castle not merely resisted, but conquered, the besieged had not the least need to negotiate. There was plenty of provisions, also of powder; in view of this it was only needful to watch the gates and quench fires in the town.

During the whole siege this was the night of most joy for Pan Michael and Ketling. Never had they had such great hope that they would come out alive from those Turkish toils, and also bring out those dearest heads in safety.

“A couple of storms more,” said the little knight, “and as God is in heaven the Turks will be sick of them, and will prefer to force us with famine. And we have supplies enough here. September is at hand; in two months rains and cold will begin. Those troops are not over-enduring; let them get well chilled once, and they will withdraw.”

“Many of them are from Ethiopian countries,” said Ketling, “or from various places where pepper grows; and any frost will nip them. We can hold out two months in the worst case, even with storms. It is impossible too to suppose that no succor will come to us. The Commonwealth will return to its senses at last; and even if the hetman should not collect a great force, he will annoy the Turk with attacks.”

“Ketling! as it seems to me, our hour has not struck yet.”

“It is in the