“Let anyone say that it was not Uncle who did it!” repeated Roh.
“I will capture that church, so help me the Lord God, amen!” concluded Zagloba.
Then he turned to his attendants who were there at the guns—
“Fire!”
Fear seized the Swedes, who were defending themselves with despair in the church, when the whole side wall began on a sudden to tremble. Bricks, rubbish, lime, fell on those who were sitting in the windows, at the portholes, on the fragments of the inside cornices, at the pigeonholes, through which they were firing at the besiegers. A terrible dust rose in the house of God, and mixed with the smoke began to stifle the wearied men. One man could not see another in the darkness. Cries of “I am suffocating, I am suffocating!” still increased the terror. The noise of balls falling through the windows, of leaden lattice falling to the floor, the heat, the exhalations from bodies, turned the retreat of God into a hell upon earth. The frightened soldiers stood aside from entrances, windows, and portholes. The panic is changed into frenzy. Again terrified voices call: “I am suffocating! Air! Water!” Hundreds of voices begin to roar—
“A white flag! a white flag!”
Erskine, who is commanding, seizes the flag with his own hand to display it outside. At that moment the entrance bursts, a line of stormers rush in like an avalanche of Satans, and a slaughter follows. There is sudden silence in the church; there is heard only the beast-like panting of the strugglers, the bite of steel on bones, and on the stone floor groans, the patter of blood; and at times some voice in which there is nothing human cries, “Quarter! Quarter!” After an hour’s fighting the bell on the tower begins to thunder, and thunders, thunders—to the victory of the Mazovians, to the funeral of the Swedes.
The Kazanovski Palace, the cloister, and the bell-tower are captured.
Pyotr Opalinski himself, the voevoda of Podlyasye, appeared in the bloodstained throng before the palace on his horse.
“Who came to our aid from the palace?” cried he, wishing to outcry the sound and the roar of men.
“He who captured the palace!” said a powerful man, appearing before the voevoda—“I!”
“What is your name?”
“Zagloba.”
“Vivat Zagloba!” bellowed thousands of throats.
But the terrible Zagloba pointed with his stained sabre toward the gate—
“We have not done enough yet. Turn the cannon toward the wall and against the gate. Advance! follow me!”
The mad throng rush in the direction of the gate. Meanwhile, oh wonder! the fire of the Swedes instead of increasing is growing weak. At the same moment some voice unexpected and piercing cries from the top of the bell-tower—
“Charnyetski is in the city! I see our squadrons!”
The Swedish fire was weakening more and more.
“Halt! halt!” commanded the voevoda.
But the throng did not hear him and rushed at random. That moment a white flag appeared on the Krakow gate.
In truth, Charnyetski, having forced his way through Dantzig House, rushed like a hurricane into the precincts of the fortress; when the Danillovich Palace was taken, and when a moment later the Lithuanian colors glittered on the walls near the Church of the Holy Ghost, Wittemberg saw that further resistance was vain. The Swedes might defend themselves yet in the lofty houses of Old and New City; but the inhabitants had already taken arms, and the defence would end in a terrible slaughter of the Swedes without hope of victory.
The trumpeters began then to sound on the walls and to wave white flags. Seeing this, the Polish commanders withheld the storm. General Löwenhaupt, attended by a number of colonels, went out through the gate of New City, and rushed with all breath to the king.
Yan Kazimir had the city in his hands now; but the kind king wished to stop the flow of Christian blood, therefore he settled on the conditions offered to Wittemberg at first. The city was to be surrendered, with all the booty collected in it. Each Swede was permitted to take with him only what he had brought from Sweden. The garrison with all the generals and with arms in hand were to march out of the city, taking their sick and wounded and the Swedish ladies, of whom a number of tens were in Warsaw. To the Poles who were serving with the Swedes, amnesty was given, with the idea that surely none were serving of their own will. Boguslav Radzivill alone was excepted. To this Wittemberg agreed the more readily since the prince was at that moment with Douglas on the Bug.
The conditions were signed at once. All the bells in the churches announced to the city and the world that the capital had passed again into the hands of its rightful monarch. An hour later a multitude of the poorest people came out from behind the walls, seeking charity and bread in the Polish camp; for all in the city except the Swedes were in want of food. The king commanded to give what was possible, and went himself to look at the departure of the Swedish garrison.
He was surrounded by church and lay dignitaries, by a suite so splendid that it dazzled the people. Nearly all the troops—that is, the troops of the kingdom under the hetmans, Charnyetski’s division, the Lithuanians under Sapyeha, and an immense crowd of general militia, together with the camp servants—assembled around his Majesty; or all were curious to see those Swedes with whom a few hours before they had fought so terribly and bloodily. Polish commissioners were posted at all the gates, from the moment of signing the conditions; these commissioners were entrusted with the duty of seeing that the Swedes bore off no booty. A special commission was occupied with receiving the booty in the city itself.
In the van came the cavalry, which was not numerous, especially since Boguslav’s men were excluded from the right
