And again Wittemberg implored the king to retreat and thus avoid ruin to himself and the army; but Karl Gustav in answer compressed his lips, fire flashed from his eyes, and he pointed to the south, where in the Russian regions he hoped to find Yan Kazimir, and also fields open to conquest, rest, provisions, pastures for horses, and rich plunder.
Meanwhile, to complete the misfortune, those Polish regiments which had served him hitherto, and which in one way or another were now alone able to meet Charnyetski, began to leave the Swedes. Pan Zbrojek resigned first; he had held to Karl hitherto not from desire of gain, but from blind attachment to the squadron, and soldierly faithfulness to Karl. He resigned in this fashion, that he engaged in conflict with a regiment of Miller’s dragoons, cut down half the men, and departed. After him resigned Pan Kalinski, who rode over the Swedish infantry. Yan Sapyeha grew gloomier each day; he was meditating something in his soul, plotting something. He had not gone hitherto himself, but his men were deserting him daily.
Karl Gustav was marching then through Narol, Tsyeshanov, and Oleshytse, to reach the San. He was upheld by the hope that Yan Kazimir would bar his road and give him battle. A victory might yet repair the fate of Sweden and bring a change of fortune. In fact, rumors were current that Yan Kazimir had set out from Lvoff with the quarter soldiers and the Tartars. But Karl’s reckonings deceived him. Yan Kazimir preferred to await the junction of the armies and the arrival of the Lithuanians under Sapyeha. Delay was his best ally; for he was growing daily in strength, while Karl was becoming weaker.
“That is not the march of troops nor of an army, but a funeral procession!” said old warriors in Yan Kazimir’s suite.
Many Swedish officers shared this opinion. Karl Gustav however repeated still that he was going to Lvoff; but he was deceiving himself and his army. It was not for him to go to Lvoff, but to think of his own safety. Besides, it was not certain that he would find Yan Kazimir in Lvoff; in every event the “Polish Darius” might withdraw far into Podolia, and draw after him the enemy into distant steppes where the Swedes must perish without rescue.
Douglas went to Premysl to try if that fortress would yield, and returned, not merely with nothing, but plucked. The catastrophe was coming slowly, but inevitably. All tidings brought to the Swedish camp were simply the announcement of it. Each day fresh tidings and ever more terrible.
“Sapyeha is marching; he is already in Tomashov!” was repeated one day. “Lyubomirski is marching with troops and mountaineers!” was announced the day following. And again: “The king is leading the quarter soldiers and the horde one hundred thousand strong! He has joined Sapyeha!”
Among these tidings were “tidings of disaster and death,” untrue and exaggerated, but they always spread fear. The courage of the army fell. Formerly whenever Karl appeared in person before his regiments, they greeted him with shouts in which rang the hope of victory; now the regiments stood before him dull and dumb. And at the fires the soldiers, famished and wearied to death, whispered more of Charnyetski than of their own king. They saw him everywhere. And, a strange thing! when for a couple of days no party had perished, when a few nights passed without alarms or cries of “Allah!” and “Strike, kill!” their disquiet became still greater. “Charnyetski has fled; God knows what he is preparing!” repeated the soldiers.
Karl halted a few days in Yaroslav, pondering what to do. During that time the Swedes placed on flat-bottomed boats sick soldiers, of whom there were many in camp, and sent them by the river to Sandomir, the nearest fortified town still in Swedish hands. After this work had been finished, and just when the news of Yan Kazimir’s march from Lvoff had come in, the King of Sweden determined to discover where Yan Kazimir was, and with that object Colonel Kanneberg with one thousand cavalry passed the San and moved to the east.
“It may be that you have in your hands the fate of the war and us all,” said the king to him at parting.
And in truth much depended on that party, for in the worst case Kanneberg was to furnish the camp with provisions; and if he could learn certainly where Yan Kazimir was, the Swedish King was to move at once with all his forces against the “Polish Darius,” whose army he was to scatter and whose person he was to seize if he could.
The first soldiers and the best horses were assigned, therefore, to Kanneberg. Choice was made the more carefully as the colonel could not take artillery or infantry; hence he must have with him men who with sabres could stand against Polish cavalry in the field.
, the party set out. A number of officers and soldiers took farewell of them, saying: “God conduct you! God give victory! God give a fortunate return!” They marched in a long line, being one thousand in number, and went two abreast over the newly built bridge which had one square still unfinished, but was in some fashion covered with planks so that they might pass.
Good hope shone in their faces, for they were exceptionally well fed. Food had been taken from others and given to them; gorailka was poured into their flasks. When they were riding away they shouted joyfully and said to their comrades—
“We will bring you Charnyetski himself on a rope.”
Fools! They knew not that they were going as go bullocks to slaughter at the shambles!
Everything combined for their ruin. Barely had they crossed the river when the Swedish sappers removed the temporary covering of the bridge, so as to
