“However it may be,” said Zagloba, “my advice is to hurry to Podlyasye. We can bring to our side those squadrons that have risen against Radzivill, and take them to the king, and that certainly will not be without a reward.”
“Let it be so!” said Oskyerko and Stankyevich.
“It is not easy,” said the little knight, “to get to Podlyasye, for we shall have to slip through the fingers of the hetman. If fortune meanwhile should grant us to snap up Kmita somewhere on the road, I would speak a couple of words in his ear, from which his skin would grow green.”
“He deserves it,” said Mirski. “That some old soldiers who have served their whole lives under the Radzivills hold to the hetman, is less to be wondered at; but that swaggerer serves only for his own profit, and the pleasure which he finds in betrayal.”
“So then to Podlyasye?” asked Oskyerko.
“To Podlyasye! to Podlyasye!” cried all in one voice.
But still the affair was difficult, as Volodyovski had said; for to go to Podlyasye it was necessary to pass near Kyedani, as near a den in which a lion was lurking.
The roads and lines of forest, the towns and villages were in the hands of Radzivill; somewhat beyond Kyedani was Kmita, with cavalry, infantry, and cannon. The hetman had heard already of the escape of the colonels, the mutiny of Volodyovski’s squadron, and the battle of Klavany; the last brought him to such rage that there was fear for his life, since a terrible attack of asthma had for a time almost stopped his breathing.
In truth he had cause enough for anger, and even for despair, since that battle brought on his head a whole Swedish tempest. People began at once after this battle to cut up here and there small Swedish detachments. Peasants did this, and individual nobles independently; but the Swedes laid it to the account of Radzivill, especially as the officers and men sent by Volodyovski to Birji declared before the commandant that one of Radzivill’s squadrons had fallen upon them at his command.
In a week a letter came to the prince from the commandant at Birji, and ten days later from Pontus de la Gardie himself, the commander-in-chief of the Swedish forces.
“Either your highness has no power and significance,” wrote the latter—“and in such case how could you conclude a treaty in the name of the whole country!—or it is your wish to bring about through artifice the ruin of the king’s army. If that is the case, the favor of my master will turn from your highness, and punishment will come quickly, unless you show obedience and efface your faults by faithful service.”
Radzivill sent couriers at once with an explanation of what had happened and how; but the dart had fastened in his haughty soul, and the burning wound began to rankle more and more. He whose word not long before terrified the country more than all Sweden; he for the half of whose property all the Swedish lords might have been bought; he who stood against his own king, thinking himself the equal of monarchs; he who had acquired fame in the whole world by his victories, and who walked in his own pride as in sunshine—must now listen to the threats of one Swedish general, must hear lectures on obedience and faithfulness. It is true that that general was brother-in-law to the king; but the king himself—who was he? A usurper of the throne belonging by right and inheritance to Yan Kazimir.
Above all, the rage of the hetman was turned against those who were the cause of that humiliation, and he swore to himself to trample Volodyovski and those colonels who were with him and the whole squadron of Lauda. With this object he marched against them; and as hunters to clear out the wolf’s nest surround a forest with shares, he surrounded them and began to pursue without rest.
Meanwhile tidings came that Kmita had crushed Nyevyarovski’s squadron, cut down or scattered the officers, and joined the men to his own. Radzivill, to strike the more surely, commanded Pan Andrei to send him some of these troops.
“Those men,” wrote the hetman, “for whose lives you interceded with us so persistently, and mainly Volodyovski with that other straggler, escaped on the road to Birji. We sent the stupidest officer with them on purpose, so that they might not win him over; but even he either became a traitor, or they fooled him. Now Volodyovski has the whole Lauda squadron, and fugitives are reinforcing him. They cut to pieces one hundred and twenty Swedes at Klavany, saying that they did it at our command, from which great distrust has arisen between us and Pontus. The whole cause may be ruined by those traitors, whose heads, had it not been for your interference, would have been cut off at our command, as God is in heaven. So we have to repent of our mildness, though we hope in God that vengeance will soon overtake them. Tidings have come to us, too, that in Billeviche nobles assemble at the house of the sword-bearer and conspire against us. This must be stopped! You will send all the cavalry to us, and the infantry to Kyedani to guard the castle and the town, for from those traitors anything may be expected. You will go yourself with some tens of horsemen to Billeviche, and bring the sword-bearer and his niece to Kyedani. At present it is important, not only for you, but for us; for whoso has them in hand has the whole Lauda region, in which the nobles, following the example of Volodyovski, are beginning to rise against us. We have sent Harasimovich to Zabludovo with instructions how to begin with those confederates. Of great importance among them is Yakub, your cousin, to whom you will write, if you think you can act on him through
