With Fire and Sword - Henryk Sienkiewicz (ink book reader .TXT) 📗

himself, in the fire, red as Satan, exposing his broad breast to the bullets, with the face of a lion and the eye of an eagle⁠—in chaos, smoke, confusion, slaughter, and tempest, in flames, observant of everything, ordering everything.

After the Zaporojians went the wild Cossacks of the Don; next, Cherkes fighting with knives; Tugai Bey led chosen Nogais; after them Subahazi, Bélgorod Tartars; then Kurdluk, swarthy men of Astrakhan, armed with gigantic bows and arrows, one of which was almost equal to a spear. They followed one another so closely that the hot breath of those behind was blown on the necks of those in front.

How many of them fell before they reached the ditch filled with the bodies of the captives, who shall tell, who shall relate? But they reached and crossed it, and began to clamber on the ramparts. Then you would have said that that starry night was the night of the Last Judgment. The cannon, unable to strike the nearest, bellowed unceasing fire on the farther ranks. Bombs, describing arcs of fire through the air, fell with a hellish laughter, making bright day in the darkness. The German infantry with the Polish land regiments, and at their side the dismounted dragoons of Vishnyevetski poured fire and lead into the faces and breasts of the Cossacks.

The first ranks wished to fall back, but pressed from behind they could not; they died in their tracks. Blood spattered under the feet of the advancing. The rampart grew slippery; hands, feet, and breasts went sliding upon it. Men grasped it, and again fell covered with smoke, black from soot, stabbed, cut, careless of wounds and death. In places they fought with cold weapons. Men were as if beside themselves from fury, with grinning teeth and blood-covered faces. The living battled on top of the quivering mass of wounded and dying. Commands were not heard; nothing was heard but a general and terrible roar, in which all sounds were merged⁠—the thunder of guns, the cough of the wounded, the groans, and the whistling of bombs.

This gigantic struggle without quarter lasted whole hours. Around the rampart rose another rampart of corpses, which hindered the approach of the assailants. The Zaporojians were cut almost to pieces, the men of Pereyasláv were lying side by side around the ramparts; the Karvoff, Bratslav, and Uman regiments were decimated; but others pressed on, pushed forward themselves from behind by the guard of the hetman, the Rumelian Turks and Tartars of Urum Bey. But disorder rose in the ranks of the assailants when the Polish land infantry, the Germans, and the dragoons drew back not a step. Panting, dripping with blood, carried away with the rage of battle, streaming in sweat, half mad with the smell of blood, they tore over one another at the enemy, just as raging wolves rush to a flock of sheep. At that juncture Hmelnitski pressed on again with the remnants of his first regiments and with the whole force, as yet intact, of the Belotserkoff Tartars, the Turks and Cherkes.

The cannon from the ramparts ceased to thunder, and the bombs to flash; hand-weapons alone were heard through the whole length of the western rampart. Discharges flashed up anew. Finally, musketry fire also stopped. Darkness covered the combatants. No eye could see what was doing there, but something was turning in the darkness like the gigantic body of a monster cast down in convulsions. Even from the cries it could not be told whether it gave forth the sounds of triumph or despair. At times these sounds also ceased, and then could be heard only one measureless groan, as if it were going out on every side, from under the earth, over the earth, in the air, higher and higher, as if spirits were flying away with groans from that field of conflict. But these were short pauses: after such a moment the uproar and howls rose with still greater power, ever hoarser and more unearthly.

Then again thundered the fire of musketry. Makhnitski with the rest of the infantry was coming to aid the wearied regiments. The trumpets began to sound a retreat in the rear ranks of the Cossacks.

Now came a pause; the Cossack regiments withdrew a furlong from the ramparts, and stood protected by the corpses of their own men. But a half-hour had not passed when Hmelnitski rushed on again and hurried his men to the assault a third time.

But this time Prince Yeremi appeared on the rampart himself, on horseback. It was easy to know him, for the banner and bunchuk of the hetman were waving above his head, and before and behind him were borne a number of tens of torches, shining with blood-colored gleams. Immediately they opened the artillery on him; but the awkward cannoneers sent the balls far beyond the Gnyezna, and he stood calm and gazed upon the approaching clouds.

The Cossacks slackened their gait as if bewitched by the sight. “Yeremi! Yeremi!” passed in a low murmur, like the sound of a breeze, through the deep ranks. Standing on the rampart in the midst of the blood-colored torches, that terrible prince seemed to them like a giant in a myth tale of the people; therefore a quiver ran over their wearied limbs, and their hands made signs of the cross.

He stood motionless. He beckoned with the gilded baton, and immediately an ominous flight of bombs sounded in the air, and fell into the advancing ranks. The host twisted like a mortally wounded dragon; a cry of terror flew from one end of the line to the other.

“On a run! on a run!” commanded the Cossack colonels.

The dark mass rushed with all its impetus to the ramparts under which refuge from the bombs could be found; but they had not passed half the interval when the prince, ever visible as on the palm of the hand, turned somewhat to the west and again beckoned with his baton.

At this signal, from the side of