“If that is the question I will make the intercession; and if she is such a royalist as you say, the intercession should be effectual—if the girl is only free, and if some mishap has not met her such as are frequent in wartime.”
“May angels protect her!”
“She deserves it. So that the courts may not trouble you, act thus wise: Levies will be made now in haste. Since, as you say, outlawry weighs on you, I cannot give you a commission as Kmita, but I will give you one as Babinich; you will make a levy which will be for the good of the country, for you are clearly a mettlesome soldier with experience. You will take the field under Stefan Charnyetski; under him death is easiest, but the chances of glory are easiest. And if need comes you will attack the Swedes of yourself as you did Hovanski. Your conversion and good deeds commenced with the day when you called yourself Babinich; call yourself Babinich still further, and the courts will leave you at rest. When you will be as bright as the sun, when the report of your services will be heard through the Commonwealth, let men discover who this great cavalier is. This and that kind of man will be ashamed to summon such a knight to a court. At that time some will have died, you will satisfy others. Not a few decisions will be lost, and I promise to exalt your services to the skies, and will present them to the Diet for reward, for in my eyes they deserve it.”
“Gracious Lord! how have I earned such favors?”
“Better than many who think they have a right to them. Well, well! be not grieved, dear royalist, for I trust that the royalist maiden will not be lost to you, and God grant you to assemble for me more royalists soon.”
Kmita, though sick, sprang quickly from the bed and fell his whole length at the feet of the king.
“In God’s name! what are you doing?” cried the king. “The blood will leave you! Yendrek! Hither, someone!”
In came the marshal himself, who had long been looking for the king through the castle.
“Holy Yerzy! my patron, what do I see?” cried he, when he saw the king raising Kmita with his own hands.
“This is Babinich, my most beloved soldier and most faithful servant, who saved my life yesterday,” said the king. “Help, Lord Marshal, to raise him to the couch.”
LIV
From Lyubovlya the king advanced to Dukla, Krosno, Lantsut, and Lvoff, having at his side the marshal of the kingdom, many dignitaries and senators, with the court squadrons and escorts. And as a great river flowing through a country gathers to itself all the smaller waters, so did new legions gather to the retinue of the king. Lords and armed nobles thronged forward, and soldiers, now singly, now in groups, and crowds of armed peasants burning with special hatred against the Swedes.
The movement was becoming universal, and the military order of things had begun to lead to it. Threatening manifestoes had appeared dated from Sanch: one by Constantine Lyubomirski, the marshal of the Circle of Knights; the other by Yan Vyelopolski, the castellan of Voinik, both calling on the nobles in the province of Krakow to join the general militia; those failing to appear were threatened with the punishments of public law. The manifesto of the king completed these, and brought the most slothful to their feet.
But there was no need of threats, for an immense enthusiasm had seized all ranks. Old men and children mounted their horses. Women gave up their jewels, their dresses; some rushed off to the conflict themselves.
In the forges gypsies were pounding whole nights and days with their hammers, turning the innocent tools of the ploughman into weapons. Villages and towns were empty, for the men had marched to the field. From the heaven-touching mountains night and day crowds of wild people were pouring down. The forces of the king increased with each moment. The clergy came forth with crosses and banners to meet the king; Jewish societies came with their rabbis; his advance was like a mighty triumph. From every side flew in the best tidings, as if borne by the wind.
Not only in that part of the country which the invasion of the enemy had not included did people rush to arms. Everywhere in the remotest lands and provinces, in towns, villages, settlements, and unapproachable wildernesses, the awful war of revenge and retaliation raised its flaming head. The lower the people had fallen before, the higher they raised their heads now; they had been reborn, changed in spirit, and in their exaltation did not even hesitate to tear open their own half-healed wounds, to free their blood of poisoned juices.
They had begun already to speak, and with increasing loudness, of the powerful union of the nobles and the army, at the head of which were to be the old grand hetman Revera Pototski and the full hetman Lantskoronski, Stefan Charnyetski and Sapyeha, Michael Radzivill, a powerful magnate anxious to remove the ill-fame which Yanush had brought on the house, and Pan Kryshtof Tyshkyevich, with many other senators, provincial and military officials and nobles.
Letters were flying every day between these men and the marshal of the kingdom, who did not wish that so noted a union should be formed without him. Tidings more and more certain arrived, till at last it was announced with authority that the hetmans and with them the army had abandoned the Swedes, and formed for the defence of the king and the country the confederation of Tyshovtsi.
The king knew of this first, for he and the queen, though far apart, had labored no little through letters and messengers at the formation of it; still, not being able to take personal part in the affair, he waited for the
