“Well! we shall remain in Taurogi, and whether I fear the Billeviches will soon be seen.”
And collecting that very day the remnant of Bützov’s defeated troops and his own, he marched, but not to Prussia, only to Rossyeni, against the Billeviches, who were encamped in the forests of Girlakol. They did not expect an attack, for news of the intended withdrawal of the troops from Taurogi had been repeated in the neighborhood for several days. The starosta struck them while off their guard, cut them to pieces, and trampled them. The sword-bearer himself, under whose leadership the party was, escaped from the defeat; but two Billeviches of another line fell, and with them a third part of the soldiers; the rest fled to the four points of the world. The starosta brought a number of tens of prisoners to Taurogi, and gave orders to slay everyone, before Anusia could intercede in their defence.
There was no further talk of leaving Taurogi; and the starosta had no need of doing so, for after this victory parties did not go beyond the Dubisha.
Sakovich put on airs and boasted beyond measure, saying that if Löwenhaupt would send him a thousand good horse he would rub out the rebellion in all Jmud. But Löwenhaupt was not in those parts then. Anusia gave a poor reception to this boasting.
“Oh, success against the sword-bearer was easy,” said she; “but if he before whom both you and the prince fled had been there, of a certainty you would have left me and fled to Prussia beyond the sea.”
These words pricked the starosta to the quick.
“First of all, do not imagine to yourself that Prussia is beyond the sea, for beyond the sea is Sweden; and second, before whom did the prince and I flee?”
“Before Pan Babinich!” answered she, courtesying with great ceremony.
“Would that I might meet him at a sword’s length!”
“Then you would surely lie a sword’s depth in the ground; but do not call the wolf from the forest.”
Sakovich, in fact, did not call that wolf with sincerity; for though he was a man of incomparable daring, he felt a certain, almost superstitious, dread of Babinich—so ghastly were the memories that remained to him after the recent campaign. He did not know, besides, how soon he would hear that terrible name.
But before that name rang through all Jmud, there came in time other news—for some the most joyful of joyful, but for Sakovich most terrible—which all mouths repeated in three words throughout the whole Commonwealth—
“Warsaw is taken!”
It seemed that the earth was opening under the feet of traitors; that the whole Swedish heaven was falling on their heads, together with all the deities which had shone in it hitherto like suns. Ears would not believe that the chancellor Oxenstiern was in captivity; that in captivity were Erskine, Löwenhaupt, Wrangel; in captivity the great Wittemberg himself, who had stained the whole Commonwealth with blood, who had conquered one half of it before the coming of Karl Gustav; that the king, Yan Kazimir, was triumphing, and after the victory would pass judgment on the guilty.
And this news flew as if on wings; roared like a bomb through the Commonwealth; went through villages, for peasant repeated it to peasant; went through the fields, for the wheat rustled it; went through the forest, for pine-tree told it to pine-tree; the eagles screamed it in the air; and all living men still the more seized their weapons.
In a moment the defeat of Girlakol was forgotten around Taurogi. The recently terrible Sakovich grew small in everything, even in his own eyes. Parties began again to attack bodies of Swedes; the Billeviches, recovering after their last defeat, passed the Dubisha again, at the head of their own men and the remainder of the Lauda nobles.
Sakovich knew not himself what to begin, whither to turn, from what side to look for salvation. For a long time he had no news from Prince Boguslav, and he racked his head in vain. Where was he, with what troops could he be? And at times a mortal terror seized him: had not the prince too fallen into captivity? He called to mind the prince’s saying that he would turn his tabor toward Warsaw, and that if they would make him commandant over the garrison in the capital, he would prefer to be there, for he could look more easily on every side.
There were not wanting also people who asserted that the prince must have fallen into the hands of Yan Kazimir.
“If the prince were not in Warsaw,” said they, “why should our gracious lord the king exclude him alone from amnesty, which he extended in advance to all Poles in the garrison? He must be already in the power of the king; and since it is known that Prince Yanush’s head was destined for the block, it is certain that Prince Boguslav’s will fall.”
In consequence of these thoughts Sakovich came to the same conviction, and wrestled with despair—first, because he loved the prince; second, because he saw that if this powerful protector were dead, the wildest beast would more easily find a place to hide its head in the Commonwealth than he, the right hand of the traitor.
All that seemed left to him was to flee to Prussia without regard to Anusia’s opposition, and seek there bread, service.
“But what would happen?” asked the starosta of himself more than once, “if the elector, fearing the anger of Yan Kazimir, should give up all fugitives?”
There was no issue but to seek safety beyond the sea, in Sweden itself.
Fortunately, after a week of this torment and doubt, a courier came from Prince Boguslav with a long autograph letter.
“Warsaw is taken from the Swedes,” wrote the prince. “My tabor and effects are lost. It is too late for me to recede, for the king’s advisers are so envenomed against me that I was excepted from amnesty. Babinich harassed my troops
