“Health is returning to the sick.”
Toward evening preparations were finished, and the fortress was entirely ready for defence. Nothing was wanting—neither supplies, nor powder, nor guns; only walls sufficiently strong and a more numerous garrison.
Chenstohova, or rather Yasna Gora, though strengthened by nature and art, was counted among the smallest and weakest fortresses of the Commonwealth. But as to the garrison, as many people might have been had for the summoning as anyone wished; but the prior purposely did not overburden the walls with men, so that supplies might hold out for a long time. Still there were those, especially among the German gunners, who were convinced that Chenstohova could not defend itself.
Fools! they thought that it had no defence but its walls and its weapons; they knew not what hearts filled with faith are. The prior then fearing lest they might spread doubt among the people, dismissed them, save one who was esteemed a master in his art.
That same day old Kyemlich and his sons came to Kmita with a request to be freed from service. Anger carried away Pan Andrei. “Dogs!” cried he, “you are ready to resign such a service and will not defend the Most Holy Lady.—Well, let it be so! You have had pay for your horses, you will receive the rest for your services soon.”
Here he took a purse from a casket, and threw it on the floor to them. “Here are your wages! You choose to seek plunder on that side of the walls—to be robbers instead of defenders of Mary! Out of my sight! you are not worthy to be here! you are not worthy of Christian society! you are not worthy to die such a death as awaits you in this place! Out, out!”
“We are not worthy,” answered the old man, spreading his hands and bending his head, “we are not worthy to have our dull eyes look on the splendors of Yasna Gora, Fortress of heaven! Morning Star! Refuge of sinners! We are not worthy, not worthy.” Here he bent so low that he bent double, and at the same time with his thin greedy hands, grown lean, seized the purse lying on the floor. “But outside the walls,” said he, “we shall not cease to serve your grace. In sudden need, we will let you know everything; we will go where ’tis needful; we will do what is needful. Your grace will have ready servants outside the walls.”
“Be off!” repeated Pan Andrei.
They went out bowing; for fear was choking them, and they were happy that the affair had ended thus. Toward evening they were no longer in the fortress.
A dark and rainy night followed. It was ; an early winter was approaching, and together with waves of rain the first flakes of wet snow were flying to the ground. Silence was broken only by the prolonged voices of guards calling from bastion to bastion, “Hold watch!” and in the darkness slipped past here and there the white habit of the prior, Kordetski. Kmita slept not; he was on the walls with Charnyetski, with whom he spoke of his past campaigns. Kmita narrated the course of the war with Hovanski, evidently not mentioning the part which he had taken in it himself; and Charnyetski talked of the skirmishes with the Swedes at Pjedbor, at Jarnovtsi, and in the environs of Krakow, of which he boasted somewhat and said—
“What was possible was done. You see, for every Swede whom I stretched out I made a knot on my sword-sash. I have six knots, and God grant me more! For this reason I wear the sword higher toward my shoulder. Soon the sash will be useless; but I’ll not take out the knots, in every knot I will have a turquoise set; after the war I will hang up the sash as a votive offering. And have you one Swede on your conscience?”
“No!” answered Kmita, with shame. “Not far from Sohachev I scattered a band, but they were robbers.”
“But you might make a great score of Northerners?”
“I might do that.”
“With the Swedes it is harder, for rarely is there one of them who is not a wizard. They learned from the Finns how to use the black ones, and each Swede has two or three devils in his service, and there are some who have seven. These guard them terribly in time of battle; but if they come hither, the devils will help them in no way, for the power of devils can do nothing in a circle where the tower on Yasna Gora is visible. Have you heard of this?”
Kmita made no answer; he turned his head to listen attentively.
“They are coming!” said he, suddenly.
“Who, in God’s name? What do you say?”
“I hear cavalry.”
“That is only wind and the beating of rain.”
“By the wounds of Christ! that is not the wind, but horses! I have a wonderfully sharp ear. A multitude of cavalry are marching, and are near already; but the wind drowns the noise. The time has come! The time has come!”
The voice of Kmita roused the stiffened guards, dozing near at hand; but it had not yet ceased when below in the darkness was heard the piercing blare of trumpets, and they began to sound, prolonged, complaining, terrible. All sprang up from slumber in amazement, in fright, and asked one another—
“Are not those the trumpets sounding to judgment in this gloomy night?”
Then the monks, the soldiers, the nobles, began to come out on the square.
The bell-ringers rushed to the bells; and soon they were all heard, the great, the smaller, and the small bells, as if for a fire, mingling their groans with the sounds of the trumpets, which had not ceased to play.
Lighted matches were thrown into pitch-barrels, prepared of purpose and tied with chains; then they were drawn upward
