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

the pond, through the space between it and the ramparts, the cavalry began to push forth, and in the flash of an eye they poured out on the edge of the shore-level. By the light of the bombs were perfectly visible the great banners of the hussars of Skshetuski and Zatsvilikhovski, the dragoons of Kushel and Volodyovski, with the prince’s Tartars, led by Roztvorovski. After them pushed out still new regiments of the prince’s Cossacks and the Wallachians of Bykhovets. Not only Hmelnitski, but the last camp-follower of the Cossacks, knew in one moment that the daring chief had determined to hurl his entire cavalry into the enemy’s flank.

That moment the trumpets sounded a retreat in the ranks of the Cossacks. “Face to the cavalry! Face to the cavalry!” was heard in alarmed voices. Hmelnitski endeavored simultaneously to change the front of his troops and defend himself from cavalry with cavalry. But there was no time. Before he could arrange his ranks the prince’s regiments had started, moving as if on wings, shouting “Kill! slay!” with rustling of banners, whistling of plumes, and the iron rattle of arms. The hussars thrust their lances into the wall of the enemy, and followed themselves, like a hurricane, overturning and crushing everything on the road. No human power, no command, no leader could hold the infantry on which their first impetus came. Wild panic seized the picked guard of the hetman. The men of Belotserkoff threw down their muskets, pikes, scythes, sabres, and shielding their heads with their hands in helplessness of terror, with the roar of beasts, they rushed against the Tartars in the rear. But the Tartars received them with a storm of arrows. So they rushed to the flank, and ran along the tabor under the infantry fire and the cannon of Vurtsel, covering the ground so thickly that it was rare when one did not fall upon another.

But now the wild Tugai Bey, aided by Subahazi and Urum Murza, struck with rage on the onrush of hussars. He did not hope to break; he wished merely to restrain them till the Silistrian and Rumelian janissaries might form in a quadrangle and protect the men of Belotserkoff from the first panic. He sprang at them as if into smoke, and flew on in the front rank, not as a leader, but as a simple Tartar; he cut and killed⁠—exposed himself with the others. The crooked sabres of the Nogais rang upon chain-mail and breastplates, and the howl of the warriors drowned all other voices. But they could not hold out. Pushed from their places, crushed with the terrible weight of the iron horsemen, against whom they were unaccustomed to stand with open front, they were driven toward the janissaries, hacked with long swords, whirled from their saddles, thrust through, beaten down, twisted like poisonous reptiles; but they defended themselves with such venom that in fact the onset of the hussars was stopped. Tugai Bey rushed like a destroying flame, and the Nogais went with him, as wolves with their female.

Still they gave way, falling more frequently on the plain. When the cry of “Allah!” thundering from the field, announced that the janissaries had formed, Skshetuski rushed on the raging Tugai Bey, and struck him on the head with a double-handed sword. But it was evident either that the knight had not regained his whole strength, or perhaps the helmet forged in Damascus withstood the blow; it is enough that the blade turned on the head, and striking with the side was shivered to fragments. But that instant darkness covered the eyes of Tugai Bey; he dropped into the arms of his Nogais, who, seizing their leader, hurried away on two sides with a terrible uproar, like a cloud blown by a mighty wind. All the prince’s cavalry was then in front of the Silistrian and Rumelian janissaries and Mohammedanized Serbs, who together with the janissaries formed one great quadrangle, and were withdrawing slowly to the tabor with their front to the enemy, bristling with muskets, lances, javelins, battle-axes, and swords.

The squadrons of armored dragoons and the Cossacks of the prince rushed on like a whirlwind; and in the very front, with a roar and heavy tramp, Skshetuski’s hussars. He flew on himself in the first rank, and at his side Pan Longin on his Livonian mare, his terrible broadsword in his hand.

A red ribbon of fire flies from one end of the quadrangle to the other; bullets whistle in the ears of the riders; here and there a man groans, here and there a horse falls. The line of cavalry is broken, but pushes on⁠—is approaching. The janissaries now hear the snorting and blown breath of the horses; the quadrangle forms more closely still, and inclines its wall of spears, held by sinewy arms, against the furious chargers. How many points are in that wall? With how many deaths does it threaten the knights?

Just then a certain hussar of gigantic size rushes upon the wall of the quadrangle with an irresistible impulse; in a moment the forefeet of his great horse are in the air; and the knight with his steed falls into the middle of the throng, splintering lances, overturning men, breaking, mashing, destroying. As an eagle swoops on a flock of white partridges, and they, crouching before him in a timid group, become the prey of the robber, who grasps them in his talons and his beak, so Pan Longin Podbipienta, falling into the midst of the enemy, rages with his broadsword. And never has a whirlwind made such destruction in a young and thick forest as he is making in the throng of janissaries. He is terrible; his form assumes superhuman proportions. His mare becomes a species of dragon, snorting flame from her nostrils; and the double-handed sword triples itself in the hands of the knight. Kislar-Bak, a gigantic aga, hurls himself upon him and falls, cut in two. In vain do the strongest men put forth