“That is only wind and the beating of rain.”
“By the wounds of Christ! that is not the wind, but horses! I have a wonderfully sharp ear. A multitude of cavalry are marching, and are near already; but the wind drowns the noise. The time has come! The time has come!”
The voice of Kmita roused the stiffened guards, dozing near at hand; but it had not yet ceased when below in the darkness was heard the piercing blare of trumpets, and they began to sound, prolonged, complaining, terrible. All sprang up from slumber in amazement, in fright, and asked one another,—
“Are not those the trumpets sounding to judgment in this gloomy night?”
Then the monks, the soldiers, the nobles, began to come out on the square.
The bell-ringers rushed to the bells; and soon they were all heard, the great, the smaller, and the small bells, as if for a fire, mingling their groans with the sounds of the trumpets, which had not ceased to play.
Lighted matches were thrown into pitch-barrels, prepared of purpose and tied with chains; then they were drawn upward with cranks. Red light streamed over the base of the cliff, and then the people on Yasna Gora saw before them a party of mounted trumpeters,—those standing nearest with trumpets at their mouths, behind them long and deep ranks of mounted men with unfurled flags.
The trumpeters played some time yet, as if they wished with those brazen sounds to express the whole power of the Swedes, and to terrify the monks altogether. At last they were silent; one of them separated from the rank, and waving a white kerchief, approached the gate.
“In the name of his Royal Grace,” cried the trumpeter, “the Most Serene King of the Swedes, Goths, and Vandals, Grand Prince of Finland, Esthonia, Karelia, Stettin, Pomerania, and the Kashubes, Prince of Rugen, Lord of Ingria, Wismark, and Bavaria, Count of the Rhenish Palatinate, open the gates.”
“Admit him,” said Kordetski.