“I spoke as I did merely to confuse Kovalski completely,” said Mirski; “but that they will not cut off our heads, as you say, is no great consolation, God knows. Everything so combines that it would be better not to live; now another war, a civil war, will break out, that will be final ruin. What reason have I, old man, to look on these things?”
“Or I, who remember other times?” said Stankyevich.
“You should not say that, gentlemen; for the mercy of God is greater than the rage of men, and his almighty hand may snatch us from the whirlpool precisely when we least expect.”
“Holy are these words,” said Pan Yan. “And to us, men from under the standard of the late Prince Yeremi, it is grievous to live now, for we were accustomed to victory; and still one likes to serve the country, if the Lord God would give at last a leader who is not a traitor, but one whom a man might trust with his whole heart and soul.”
“Oi! true, true!” said Pan Michael. “A man would fight night and day.”
“But I tell you, gentlemen, that this is the greatest despair,” said Mirski; “for everyone wanders as in darkness, and asks himself what to do, and uncertainty stifles him, like a nightmare. I know not how it is with you, but mental disquiet is rending me. And when I think that I cast my baton at the feet of the hetman, that I was the cause of resistance and mutiny, the remnants of my gray hair stand on my head from terror. So it is! But what is to be done in presence of open treason? Happy are they who do not need to give themselves such questions, and seek for answers in their souls.”
“A leader, a leader; may the merciful Lord give a leader!” said Stankyevich, raising his eyes toward heaven.
“Do not men say that the voevoda of Vityebsk is a wonderfully honest man?” asked Pan Stanislav.
“They do,” replied Mirski; “but he has not the baton of grand or full hetman, and before the king clothes him with the office of hetman, he can act only on his own account. He will not go to the Swedes, or anywhere else; that is certain.”
“Pan Gosyevski, full hetman, is a captive in Kyedani.”
“Yes, for he is an honest man,” said Oskyerko. “When news of that came to me, I was distressed, and had an immediate foreboding of evil.”
Pan Michael fell to thinking, and said after a while: “I was in Warsaw once, and went to the king’s palace. Our gracious lord, since he loves soldiers and had praised me for the Berestechko affair, knew me at once and commanded me to come to dinner. At this dinner I saw Pan Charnyetski, as the dinner was specially for him. The king grew a little merry from wine, pressed Charnyetski’s head, and said at last: ‘Even should the time come in which all will desert me, you will be faithful.’ With my own ears I heard that said, as it were with prophetic spirit. Pan Charnyetski, from emotion, was hardly able to speak. He only repeated: ‘To the last breath! to the last breath!’ And then the king shed tears—”
“Who knows if those were not prophetic words, for the time of disaster had already come,” said Mirski.
“Charnyetski is a great soldier,” replied Stankyevich. “There are no lips in the Commonwealth which do not repeat his name.”
“They say,” said Pan Yan, “that the Tartars, who are aiding Revera Pototski against Hmelnitski, are so much in love with Charnyetski that they will not go where he is not with them.”
“That is real truth,” answered Oskyerko. “I heard that told in Kyedani before the hetman. We were all praising at that time Charnyetski wonderfully, but it was not to the taste of Radzivill, for he frowned and said, ‘He is quartermaster of the king, but he might be under-starosta with me at Tykotsin.’ ”
“Envy, it is clear, was gnawing him.”
“It is a well-known fact that an apostate cannot endure the lustre of virtue.”
Thus did the captive colonels converse; then their speech was turned again to Zagloba. Volodyovski assured them that aid might be looked for from him, for he was not the man to leave his friends in misfortune.
“I am certain,” said he, “that he has fled to Upita, where he will find my men, if they are not yet defeated, or taken by force to Kyedani. With them he will come to rescue us, unless they refuse to come, which I do not expect; for in the squadron are Lauda men chiefly, and they are fond of me.”
“But they are old clients of Radzivill,” remarked Mirski.
“True; but when they hear of the surrender of Lithuania to the Swedes, the imprisonment of the full hetman and Pan Yudytski, of you and me, it will turn their hearts away greatly from Radzivill. Those are honest nobles; Pan Zagloba will neglect nothing to paint the hetman with soot, and he can do that better than any of us.”
“True,” said Pan Stanislav; “but meanwhile we shall be in Birji.”
“That cannot be, for we are making a circle to avoid Upita, and from Upita the road is direct as if cut with a sickle. Even were they to start a day later, or two days, they could still be in Birji before us, and block our way. We are only going to Shavli now, and from there we shall go to Birji directly; but you must know that it is nearer from Upita to Birji than to Shavli.”
“As I live, it is nearer, and the road is better,”
