The colonels rushed to establish order; and since all in the camp, save a few volunteers, were old soldiers, they soon stood in order, waiting for what would appear.
When the cry came, “Radzivill is coming!” Zagloba was greatly confused; but in the first moment he would not believe it.
“What has happened to Volodyovski? Has he let himself be surrounded, so that not a man has come back with a warning? And the second party? And Pan Lipnitski? Impossible!” repeated Zagloba to himself, wiping his forehead, which was sweating profusely. “Has this dragon, this man-killer, this Lucifer, been able to come from Kyedani already? Is the last hour approaching?”
Meanwhile from every side voices more and more numerous cried, “Radzivill! Radzivill!”
Zagloba ceased to doubt. He sprang up and rushed to Pan Yan’s quarters. “Oh, Yan, save! It is time now!”
“What has happened?” asked Pan Yan.
“Radzivill is coming! To your head I give everything, for Prince Yeremi said that you are a born leader. I will superintend myself, but do you give counsel and lead.”
“That cannot be Radzivill!” said Pan Yan. “From what direction are the troops marching?”
“From Volkovysk. It is said that they have taken Volodyovski and the second party which I sent not long ago.”
“Volodyovski let himself be taken! Oh, father, you do not know him. He is coming back himself—no one else!”
“But it is said that there is an enormous army!”
“Praise be to God! it is clear then that Sapyeha is coming.”
“For God’s sake! what do you tell me? Why then was it said that Lipnitski went against them?”
“That is just the proof that it is not Radzivill who is coming. Lipnitski discovered who it was, joined, and all are coming together. Let us go out, let us go out!”
“I said that the first moment!” cried Zagloba. “All were frightened, but I thought, ‘That cannot be!’ I saw the position at once. Come! hurry, Yan, hurry! Those men out there are confused. Aha!”
Zagloba and Pan Yan hastened to the ramparts, occupied already by the troops, and began to pass along. Zagloba’s face was radiant; he stopped every little while, and cried so that all heard him—
“Gracious gentlemen, we have guests! I have no reason to lose heart! If that is Radzivill, I’ll show him the road back to Kyedani!”
“We’ll show him!” cried the army.
“Kindle fires on the ramparts! We will not hide ourselves; let them see us, we are ready! Kindle fires!”
Straightway they brought wood, and a quarter of an hour later the whole camp was flaming, till the heavens grew red as if from daybreak. The soldiers, turning away from the light, looked into the darkness in the direction of Bobrovniki. Some of them cried that they heard a clatter and the stamp of horses.
Just then in the darkness musket-shots were heard from afar. Zagloba pulled Pan Yan by the skirts.
“They are beginning to fire!” said he, disquieted.
“Salutes!” answered Pan Yan.
After the shots shouts of joy were heard. There was no reason for further doubt; a moment later a number of riders rushed in on foaming horses, crying—
“Pan Sapyeha! the voevoda of Vityebsk!”
Barely had the soldiers heard this, when they rushed forth from the walls, like an overflowed river, and ran forward, roaring so that anyone hearing their voices from afar might think them cries from a town in which victors were putting all to the sword.
Zagloba, wearing all the insignia of his office, with a baton in his hand and a heron’s feather in his cap, rode out under his horsetail standard, at the head of the colonels, to the front of the fortifications.
After a while the voevoda of Vityebsk at the head of his officers, and with Volodyovski at his side, rode into the lighted circle. He was a man already in respectable years, of medium weight, with a face not beautiful, but wise and kindly. His mustaches, cut evenly over his upper lip, were iron-gray, as was also a small beard, which made him resemble a foreigner, though he dressed in Polish fashion. Though famous for many military exploits he looked more like a civilian than a soldier; those who knew him more intimately said that in the countenance of the voevoda Minerva was greater than Mars. But, besides Minerva and Mars, there was in that face a gem rarer in those times; that is honesty, which flowing forth from his soul was reflected in his eyes as the light of the sun is in water. At the first glance people recognized that he was a just and honorable man.
“We waited as for a father!” cried the soldiers.
“And so our leader has come!” repeated others, with emotion.
“Vivat, vivat!”
Pan Zagloba, at the head of his colonels, hurried toward Sapyeha, who reined in his horse and began to bow with his lynx-skin cap.
“Serene great mighty voevoda!” began Zagloba, “though I possessed the eloquence of the ancient Romans, nay, of Cicero himself, or, going to remoter times, of that famous Athenian, Demosthenes, I should not be able to express the delight which has seized our hearts at sight of the worthy person of the serene great mighty lord. The whole Commonwealth is rejoicing in our hearts, greeting the wisest senator and the best son, with a delight all the greater because unexpected. Behold, we were drawn out here on these bulwarks under arms, not ready for greeting, but for battle—not to hear shouts of delight, but the thunder of cannon—not to shed tears, but our blood! When however hundred-tongued Fame bore around the news that the defender of the fatherland was coming, not the heretic—the voevoda of Vityebsk, not the grand hetman of Lithuania—Sapyeha, not Radzivill—”
But Pan Sapyeha was in an evident hurry to enter; for he waved his hand quickly, with a kindly though lordly inattention, and said—
“Radzivill also is coming. In two days he will be here!”
Zagloba was confused; first, because the thread of his speech was broken, and second, because the news
