“Some treason!” cried Pan Tomash. “By Christ’s wounds, gallop with your cavalry against that infantry; otherwise it will attack us on the flank.”
“There is a great force!” answered Hjanstovski.
“Oppose it even for an hour, and we will escape in the rear to the forests.”
The officer galloped away, and was soon rushing over the field at the head of two hundred men; seeing which the enemy’s infantry began to form in the willows to receive the Poles. The squadron urged the horses, and in the willow-bushes a musketry fire was soon rattling.
Billevich had doubts, not only of victory, but of saving his own infantry. He might withdraw to the rear with a part of the cavalry with the ladies, and seek safety in the forest; but such a withdrawal would be a great defeat, for it meant leaving to the enemy’s sword most of the party and the remnant of the population of Lauda, which had collected in Volmontovichi to see Billevich. Volmontovichi itself would be levelled to the ground. There remained still the lone hope that Hjanstovski would break the infantry. Meanwhile it was growing dark in the sky; but in the village the light increased every moment, for the chips, splinters, and shavings, lying in a heap at the first house near the gate, had caught fire. The house itself caught fire from them, and a red conflagration was rising.
By the light of the burning Billevich saw Hjanstovski’s cavalry returning in disorder and panic; after it the Swedish infantry were rushing from the willows, advancing to the attack on a run.
He understood then that he must retreat by the only road open. He rushed to the rest of the cavalry, waved his sword and cried—
“To the rear, gentlemen, and in order, in order!”
Suddenly shots were heard in the rear also, mingled with shouts of soldiery.
Billevich saw then that he was surrounded, that he had fallen as it were into a trap from which there was neither issue nor rescue. It remained for him only to perish with honor; therefore he sprang out before the line of cavalry, and cried—
“Let us fall one upon the other! Let us not spare our blood for the faith and the country!”
Meanwhile the fire of the infantry defending the gate and the left side of the village had grown weak, and the increasing shout of the enemy announced their near victory.
But what mean those hoarse trumpet sounds in the ranks of Sakovich’s party, and the rattle of drums in the ranks of the Swedes?
Outcries shriller and shriller are heard, in some way wonderful, confused, as if not triumph but terror rings through them.
The fire at the gate stops in a moment, as if someone had cut it off with a knife. Groups of Sakovich’s cavalry are flying at breakneck speed from the left flank to the main road. On the right flank the infantry halt, and then, instead of advancing, begin to withdraw to the willows. “What is this?” cried Billevich.
Meanwhile the answer comes from that grove out of which Sakovich had issued; and now emerge from it men, horses, squadrons, horsetail standards, sabres, and march—no, they fly like a storm, and not like a storm—like a tempest! In the bloody gleams of the fire they are as visible as a thing on the hand. They are hastening in thousands! The earth seems to flee from beneath them, and they speed on in dense column; one would say that some monster had issued from the oak-grove, and is sweeping across the fields to the village to swallow it. The air flies before them, driven by the impetus; with them go terror and ruin. They are almost there! Now the attack! Like a whirlwind they scatter Sakovich’s men.
“O God! O great God!” cries Billevich, in bewilderment; “these are ours! That must be Babinich!”
“Babinich!” roared every throat after him.
“Babinich! Babinich!” called terrified voices in Sakovich’s party.
And all the enemy’s cavalry wheel to the right, to escape toward the infantry. The fence is broken with a sharp crash, under the pressure of horses’ breasts. The pasture is filled with the fleeing; but the newcomers, on their shoulders already, cut, slash—cut without resting, cut without pity. The whistling of sabres, cries, groans, are heard. Pursuers and pursued fall upon the infantry, overturn, break, and scatter them. At last the whole mass rolls on toward the river, disappears in the brush, clambers out on the opposite bank. Men are visible yet; the chasing continues, with cutting and cutting. They recede. Their sabres flash once again; then they vanish in bushes, in space, and in darkness.
Billevich’s infantry began to withdraw from the gate and the houses, which needed no further defence. The cavalry stood for a time in such wonder that deep silence reigned in the ranks; and only when the flaming house had fallen with a crash was some voice heard on a sudden—
“In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the storm has gone by!”
“Not a foot will come out alive from that hunt!” said another voice.
“Gracious gentlemen!” cried the sword-bearer, suddenly, “shall we not spring at those who came at us in the rear? They are retreating, but we will come up.”
“Kill, slay!” answered a chorus of voices.
All the cavalry wheeled around and urged their horses after the last division of the enemy. In Volmontovichi remained only old men, women, children, and “the lady” with her friend.
They quenched the fire in a twinkle; joy inconceivable seized all hearts. Women with weeping and sobbing raised their hands heavenward, and turning to the point where Babinich had rushed away, cried—
“God bless thee, invincible warrior! savior who rescued us, with our children and houses, from ruin!”
The ancient, decrepit Butryms repeated in chorus—
“God bless thee, God guide thee! Without thee this would have been the end of Volmontovichi.”
Ah, had they known in that crowd that the very same hand that had now saved the village from fire and the people from steel
