The Tartars fed their horses with barley from their hands, so that the beasts might gain strength before battle; but Kmita sat on a fresh pony and rode farther to look at the camp of the enemy.
After half an hour’s ride he found in the willows the light-horse party which Korsak had sent to reconnoitre.
“Well,” asked Kmita, “what is to be heard?”
“They are not sleeping, they are bustling like bees in a hive,” answered the banneret. “They would have started already, but have not wagons sufficient.”
“Can the camp be seen from some point near at hand?”
“It can from that height which is covered with bushes. The camp lies over there in the valley of the river. Does your grace wish to see it?”
“Lead on.”
The banneret put spurs to his horse, and they rode to the height. Day was already in the sky, and the air was filled with a golden light; but along the river on the opposite low bank there lay still a dense fog. Hidden in the bushes, they looked at that fog growing thinner and thinner.
At last about two furlongs distant a square earthwork was laid bare. Kmita’s glance was fixed on it with eagerness; but at the first moment he saw only the misty outlines of tents and wagons standing in the centre along the intrenchments. The blaze of fires was not visible; he saw only smoke rising in lofty curls to the sky in sign of fine weather. But as the fog vanished Pan Andrei could distinguish through his field-glass blue Swedish and yellow Prussian banners planted on the intrenchments; then masses of soldiers, cannon, and horses.
Around there was silence, broken only by the rustle of bushes moved by the breeze, and the glad morning twitter of birds; but from the camp came a deep sound.
Evidently no one was sleeping, and they were preparing to march, for in the centre of the intrenchment was an unusual stir. Whole regiments were moving from place to place; some went out in front of the intrenchments; around the wagons there was a tremendous bustle. Cannon also were drawn from the trenches.
“It cannot be but they are preparing to march,” said Kmita.
“All the prisoners said: ‘They wish to make a junction with the infantry; and besides they do not think that the hetman can come up before evening; and even if he were to come up, they prefer a battle in the open field to yielding that infantry to the knife.’ ”
“About two hours will pass before they move, and at the end of two hours the hetman will be here.”
“Praise be to God!” said the banneret.
“Send to tell our men not to feed too long.”
“According to order.”
“But have they not sent away parties to this side of the river?”
“To this side they have not sent one. But they have sent some to their infantry, marching from Elko.”
“It is well!” said Kmita.
And he descended the height, and commanding the party to hide longer in the rushes, moved back himself with all the breath in his horse to the squadron.
Gosyevski was just mounting when Babinich arrived. The young knight told quickly what he had seen and what the position was; the hetman listened with great satisfaction, and urged forward the squadrons without delay.
Babinich’s party went in advance; after it the Lithuanian squadrons; then that of Voynillovich, that of Lauda, the hetman’s own, and others. The horde remained behind; for Hassan Bey begged for that with insistence, fearing that his men might not withstand the first onset of the heavy cavalry. He had also another reckoning.
He wished, when the Lithuanians struck the enemy’s front, to seize the camp with his Tartars; in the camp he expected to find very rich plunder. The hetman permitted this, thinking justly that the Tartars would strike weakly on the cavalry, but would fall like madmen on the tabor and might raise a panic, especially since the Prussian horses were less accustomed to their terrible howling.
In two hours, as Kmita had predicted, they halted in front of that elevation from which the scouting-party had looked into the intrenchments, and which now concealed the march of all the troops. The banneret, seeing the troops approaching, sprang forward like lightning with intelligence that the enemy, having withdrawn the pickets from this side of the river, had already moved, and that the rear of the tabor was just leaving the intrenchments.
When he heard this, Gosyevski drew his baton from the holsters of the saddle, and said—
“They cannot return now, for the wagons block the way. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost! There is no reason to hide longer!”
He beckoned to the bunchuck-bearer; and he, raising the horsetail standard aloft, waved it on every side. At this sign all the horsetail standards began to wave, trumpets thundered, Tartar pipes squeaked, six thousand sabres were gleaming in the air, and six thousand throats shouted—
“Jesus! Mary!”
“Allah uh Allah!”
Then squadron after squadron rose in a trot from behind the height. In Waldeck’s camp they had not expected guests so soon, for a feverish movement set in. The drums rattled uninterruptedly; the regiments turned with front to the river.
It was possible to see with the naked eye generals and colonels flying between the regiments; they hurried to the centre with the cannon, so as to bring them forward to the river.
After a while both armies were not farther than a thousand yards from each other. They were divided only by a broad meadow, in the centre of which a river flowed. Another moment, and the first streak of white smoke bloomed out from the Prussian side toward the Poles.
The
