“May the Most High have in His protection the whole sacred Commonwealth, us all, and among us especially her grace, the lady here present, the worthy wife of our commander, on whose beauty our eyes are scarcely worthy to gaze. I have no wish to rival Pan Zagloba, whose adventures would have roused the greatest wonder in Dido herself and her charming attendants; but if you, gentlemen, will give time to hear my adventures, I will not delay, lest I offend the honorable company.
“In youth I inherited in the Ukraine a considerable estate near Tarashcha. I had two villages from my mother in a peaceable region near Yaslo; but I chose to live in my father’s place, since it was nearer the horde and more open to adventure. Knightly daring drew me toward the Saitch, but for us there was nothing there at that time; I went to the Wilderness in company with restless spirits, and experienced delight. It was pleasant for me on my lands; one thing alone pained me keenly,—I had a bad neighbor. He was a mere peasant, from Byalotserkov, who had been in his youth at the Saitch, where he rose to the office of kuren ataman, and was an envoy from the Cossacks to Warsaw, where he became a noble. His name was Didyuk. And you, gentlemen, must know that the Mushalskis derive their descent from a certain chief of the Samnites, called Musca, which in our tongue means mucha (fly). That Musca, after fruitless attacks on the Romans, came to the court of Zyemovit, the son of Piast, who renamed him, for greater convenience, Muscalski, which later on his posterity changed to Mushalski. Feeling that I was of such noble blood, I looked with great abomination on that Didyuk. If the scoundrel had known how to respect the honor which met him, and to recognize the supreme perfection of the rank of noble above all others, perhaps I might have said nothing. But he, while holding land like a noble, mocked at the dignity, and said frequently: ‘Is my shadow taller now? I was a Cossack, and a Cossack I’ll remain; but nobility and all you devils of Poles are that for me—’ I cannot in this place relate to you, gentlemen, what foul gesture he made, for the presence of her grace, the lady, will not in any way permit me to do so. But a wild rage seized me, and I began to persecute him. He was not afraid; he was a resolute man, and paid me with interest. I would have attacked him with a sabre; but I did not like to do so, in view of his insignificant origin. I hated him as the plague, and he pursued me with venom. Once, on the square in Tarashcha, he fired at me, and came within one hair of killing me; in return, I opened his head with a hatchet. Twice I invaded his house with my servants, and twice he fell upon mine with his ruffians. He could not master me, neither could I overcome him. I wished to use law against him; bah! what kind of law is there in the Ukraine, when ruins of towns are still smoking? Whoever can summon ruffians in the Ukraine may jeer at the Commonwealth. So did he do, blaspheming besides this common mother of ours, not remembering for a moment that she, by raising him to the rank of noble, had pressed him to her bosom, given him privileges in virtue of which he owned land and that boundless liberty which he could not have had under any other rule. If we could have met in neighbor fashion, arguments would not have failed me; but we did not see each other except with a musket in one hand and a firebrand in the other. Hatred increased in me daily, until I had grown yellow. I was thinking always of one thing,—how to seize him. I felt, however, that hatred was a sin; and I only wished, in return for his insults to nobility, to tear his skin with sticks, and then, forgiving him all his sins, as beseemed me, a true Christian, to give command to shoot him down simply. But the Lord God ordained otherwise.
“Beyond the village I had a nice bee farm, and went one day to look at it. The time was near evening. I was there barely the length of ten ‘Our Fathers,’ when some clamor struck my ears. I looked around. Smoke like a cloud was over the village. In a moment men were rushing toward me. The horde! the horde! And right there behind the men a legion, I tell you. Arrows were flying as thickly as drops in a rain shower; and wherever I looked, sheepskin coats and the devilish snouts of the horde. I sprang to horse! But before I could touch the stirrup with my foot, five or six lariats were on me. I tore away, for I was strong then. Nec Hercules! Three months afterward I found myself with another captive in a Crimean village beyond Bagchesarai. Salma Bey was the name of my master. He was a rich Tartar, but a sullen man and cruel to captives. We had to work under clubs, to dig wells, and toil in the fields. I wished to ransom myself; I had the means to do so. Through a certain Armenian I wrote letters to Yaslo. I know not whether the letters were delivered, or the ransom intercepted; it is enough that nothing came. They took me to Tsargrad[18] and sold me to be a galley-slave.
“There is much to tell of that city, for I know not whether there is a greater and a more beautiful one in the world. People are there as numerous as grass on the steppe, or as stones in the Dniester; strong battlemented walls; tower after tower. Dogs wander through the city together with the people; the Turks do not harm them, because they feel their relationship, being dog brothers themselves. There are no other ranks with them but lords and slaves, and there is nothing more grievous than Pagan captivity. God knows whether it is true, but I heard in the galleys that the waters in Tsargrad, such as the Bosphorus, and the Golden Horn too, which enters the heart of the city, have come from tears shed by captives. Not a few of mine were shed there.
“Terrible is the Turkish power, and to no potentate are so many kings subject as to the Sultan. The Turks themselves say that were it not for Lehistan,—thus they name our mother,—they would have been lords of the earth long ago. ‘Behind the shoulders of the Pole,’ say they, ‘the rest of the world live in injustice; for the Pole,’ say they, ‘lies like a dog in front of the cross, and bites our hands.’ And they are right, for it is that way, and it will be that way. And we here in Hreptyoff and the commands farther on in Mohiloff, in Yampol, in Rashkoff,—what else are we doing? There is a world of wickedness in our Commonwealth; but still I think that God will account to us for this service sometime, and perhaps men too will account to us.
“But now I will return to what happened to me. The captives who live on land, in towns and villages, groan in less suffering than those who row in galleys. For the galley-slaves when once riveted on the bench near the oars are never unriveted, day or night, or festival; they must live there in chains till they die; and if the vessel goes down in a battle, they must go with it. They are all naked; the cold freezes them; the rain wets them; hunger pinches them; and for that there is no help but tears and terrible toil, for the oars are so heavy and large that two men are needed at one of them.
“They brought me in the night and riveted my chains, having put me in front of some comrade in misery whom in the darkness I could not distinguish. When I heard that beating of the hammer and the sound of the fetters, dear God! it seemed to me that they were driving the nails of my coffin; I would have preferred even that. I prayed, but hope in my heart was as if the wind had blown it away. A kavadji stifled my groans with blows; I sat there in silence all night, till day began to break. I looked then on him who was to work the same oar with me. O dear Jesus Christ! can you guess who was in front of me, gentlemen? Didyuk!
“I knew him at once, though he was naked, had grown thin, and the beard had come down to his waist,—for he had been sold long before to the galleys. I gazed on him, and he on me; he recognized me. We said not a word to each other. See what had come to us! Still, there was such rancor in both that not only did we not greet each other, but hatred burst up like a flame in us, and delight seized the heart of each that his enemy had to suffer the same things as he. That very day the galley moved on its voyage. It was strange to hold one oar with your bitterest enemy, to eat from one dish with him food which at home with us dogs would not eat, to endure the same tyranny, to breathe the same air, to suffer together, to weep face to face. We sailed through the Hellespont, and then the Archipelago. Island after island is there, and all in the power of the Turk. Both shores also,—a whole world! Oh, how we suffered! In the day, heat indescribable. The sun burned with such force that the waters seemed to flame from it; and when those flames began to quiver and dance on the waves, you would have said that a fiery rain was falling. Sweat poured from us, and our tongues cleaved to the roofs of our mouths. At night the cold bit us like a dog. Solace from no place; nothing but suffering, sorrow for lost happiness, torment and pain. Words cannot tell it. At one station in the Grecian land we saw from the galley famous ruins of a temple which the Greeks reared in old times. Column stands there by column; as if gold, that marble is yellow from age. All was seen clearly, for it was on a steep height, and the sky is like turquoise in Greece. Then we sailed on around the Morea. Day followed day, week followed week; Didyuk and I had not exchanged a word, for pride and rancor dwelt still in our hearts. But we began to break slowly under God’s hand. From toil and change of air the sinful flesh was falling from our bones; wounds, given by the lash, were festering in the sun. In the night we prayed for death. When I dozed a little, I heard Didyuk say, ‘O Christ, have mercy! Holy Most Pure, have mercy! Let me die.’ He also heard and saw how I stretched forth my hands to the Mother of God and her Child. And here it was as if the sea had blown hatred from the heart. There was less of it, and then less. At last, when I had wept over myself, I wept over him. We looked on each other then differently. Nay! we began to help each other. When sweating and deathly weariness came on me, he rowed alone; when he was in a similar state, I did the same for him. When they brought a plate of food, each one considered that the other ought to have it. But, gentlemen, see what the nature of man is! Speaking plainly, we loved each other already, but neither wished to say the word first. The rogue was in him, the Ukraine spirit! We changed only when it had become terribly hard for us and grievous, and we said to-day, ‘to-morrow we shall meet the Venetian fleet—’ Provisions too were scarce, and they spared everything on us but the lash. Night came; we were groaning in quiet, and he in his way, I in mine, were praying still more earnestly. I looked by the light of the moon; tears were flowing down his beard in a torrent. My heart rose, and I said, ‘Didyuk, we are from the same parts; let us forgive each other our offences.’ When he heard this, dear God! didn’t the man sob, and pull till his chains rattled! We fell into each other’s arms over the oar, kissing each other and weeping. I cannot tell you how long we held each other, for we forgot ourselves, but we were trembling from sobs.”
Here Pan Mushalski stopped, and began to remove something from around his eyes with his fingers. A moment of silence followed; but the cold north wind whistled from between the beams, and in the room the fire hissed and the crickets chirped. Then Pan Mushalski panted, drew a deep breath, and continued:—
“The Lord God, as will appear, blessed us and showed us His favor; but at the time we paid bitterly for our brotherly feeling. While we were embracing, we entangled the chains so that we could not untangle them. The overseers came and extricated us, but the lash whistled above us for more than an hour. They beat us without looking where. Blood flowed from me, flowed also from Didyuk; the two bloods mingled and went in one stream to the sea. But that is nothing! it is an old story—to the glory of God!