The whole right wing of the Swedes, under the lead of Sweno, faced the new enemy in which the trained Swedish soldiers recognized hussars. They were led by a man on a valiant dapple gray; he wore a burka, and a wild-cat skin cap with a heron feather. He was perfectly visible to the eye, for he was riding at one side some yards from the soldiers.
“Charnyetski! Charnyetski!” was the cry in the Swedish ranks.
Sweno looked in despair at the sky, then pressed his horse with his knees and rushed forward with his men.
But Charnyetski led his hussars a few yards farther, and when they were moving with the swiftest rush, he turned back alone.
With that a third squadron issued from the forest, he galloped to that and led it forward; a fourth came out, he led that on; pointing to each with his baton, where it must strike. You would have said that he was a man leading harvesters to his field and distributing work among them.
At last, when the fifth squadron had come forth from the forest, he put himself at the head of that, and with it rushed to the fight.
But the hussars had already forced the right wing to the rear, and after a while had broken it completely; the three other squadrons, racing around the Swedes in Tartar fashion and raising an uproar, had thrown them into disorder; then they fell to cutting them with steel, to thrusting them with lances, scattering, trampling, and finally pursuing them amid shrieks and slaughter.
Kanneberg saw that he had fallen into an ambush, and had led his detachment as it were under the knife. For him there was no thought of victory now; but he wished to save as many men as possible, hence he ordered to sound the retreat. The Swedes, therefore, turned with all speed to that same road by which they had come to Vyelki Ochi; but Charnyetski’s men so followed them that the breaths of the Polish horses warmed the shoulders of the Swedes.
In these conditions and in view of the terror which had seized the Swedish cavalry, that return could not take place in order; and soon Kanneberg’s brilliant division was turned into a crowd fleeing in disorder and slaughtered almost without resistance.
The longer the pursuit lasted, the more irregular it became; for the Poles did not pursue in order, each of them drove his horse according to the breath in the beast’s nostrils, and attacked and slew whom he wished.