Many of his men had begun to climb the wall to look through the stockade and sate their eyes with the sight of the slaughter. Those of Novoveski’s soldiers who had not gone to the steppe, seeing the Lithuanian Tartars assembling, and thinking there was something to look at in the town, mixed with them without a shadow of fear or suspicion. Moreover, there were barely twenty of those soldiers; the rest were dispersed in the dram-shops.
Meanwhile the bands of Krychinski and Adurovich scattered through the place in the twinkle of an eye. The men in those bands were almost exclusively Lithuanian Tartars and Cheremis, therefore former inhabitants of the Commonwealth, for the greater part nobles; but since they had left its borders long before, during that time of wandering they had become much like wild Tartars. Their former clothing had gone to pieces, and they were dressed in sheepskin coats with the wool outside. These coats they wore next to their bodies, which were embrowned from the winds of the steppe and from the smoke of fires; but their weapons were better than those of wild Tartars,—all had sabres, all had bows seasoned in fire, and many had muskets. Their faces expressed the same cruelty and thirst for blood as those of their Dobrudja, Belgrod, or Crimean brethren.
Now scattering through the town, they began to run about in various directions, shouting shrilly, as if wishing by those shouts to encourage one another, and excite one another to slaughter and plunder. But though many of them had put knives in their mouths in Tartar fashion, the people of the place, composed as in Yampol of Wallachians, Armenians, Greeks, and partly of Tartar merchants, looked on them without any distrust. The shops were open; the merchants, sitting in front of their shops in Turkish fashion on benches, slipped their beads through their fingers. The cries of the Lithuanian Tartars merely caused men to look at them with curiosity, thinking that they were playing some game.
But all at once smoke rose from the corners of the market square, and from the mouth of all the Tartars came a howling so terrible that pale fear seized the Wallachians, Armenians, and Greeks, and all their wives and children.
Straightway a shower of arrows rained on the peaceful inhabitants. Their cries, the noise of doors and windows closed in a hurry, were mingled with the tramp of horses and the howling of the plunderers.
The market was covered with smoke. Cries of “Woe, woe!” were raised. At the same time the Tartars fell to breaking open shops and houses, dragging out terrified women by the hair; hurling into the street furniture, morocco, merchandise, beds from which feathers went up in a cloud; the groans of slaughtered men were heard, lamentation, the howling of dogs, the bellowing of cattle caught by fire in rear buildings; red tongues of flame, visible even in the daytime on the black rolls of smoke, were shooting higher and higher toward the sky.
In the fortalice Azya’s cavalry-men hurled themselves at the very beginning on the infantry, who were defenceless for the greater part.
There was no struggle whatever; a number of knives were buried in each Polish breast without warning; then the heads of the unfortunates were cut off and borne to the hoofs of Azya’s horse.
Tugai Bey’s son permitted most of his men to join their brethren in the bloody work; but he himself stood and looked on.
Smoke hid the work of Krychinski and Adurovich; the odor of burnt flesh rose to the fortalice. The town was burning like a great pile, and smoke covered the view; only at times in the smoke was heard the report of a musket, like thunder in a cloud, or a fleeing man was seen, or a crowd of Tartars pursuing.