The marshal received Charnyetski with open arms, entertained him with food and drink, did not let him go till morning; but in the morning the two armies were joined, and marched farther under command of Charnyetski.
Near Syenyava the Poles attacked the Swedes again with such effect that they cut the rearguard to pieces and brought disorder into the main army. Only at daybreak did the artillery disperse them. At Lejaysk, Charnyetski attacked with still greater vigor. Considerable detachments of the Swedes were mired in soft places, caused by rains and inundations, and those fell into the hands of the Poles. The roads became of the worst for the Swedes. Exhausted, hungry, and tortured by desire of sleep, the regiments barely marched. More and more soldiers stopped on the way. Some were found so terribly reduced that they no longer wished to eat or drink, they only begged for death. Others lay down and died on hillocks; some lost presence of mind, and looked with the greatest indifference on the approaching pursuers. Foreigners, who were counted frequently in the ranks of the Swedes, began to disappear from the camp and go over to Charnyetski. Only the unbroken spirit of Karl Gustav held the remnant of its dying strength in the whole army.
For not only did an enemy follow the army; various “parties” under unknown leaders and bands of peasants crossed its road continually. Those bodies, unformed and not very numerous, could not, it is true, strike it with offensive warfare, but they wearied it mortally. And wishing to instil into the Swedes the conviction that Tartars had already come with assistance, all the Polish troops gave forth the Tartar shout; therefore “Allah! Allah!” was heard night and day without a moment’s cessation. The Swedish soldiers could not draw breath, could not put aside their armor for an instant. More than once a few men alarmed the whole camp. Horses fell by tens, and were eaten immediately; for the transport of provisions had become impossible. From time to time the Polish horsemen found Swedish corpses terribly disfigured; here they recognized at once the hands of peasants. The greater part of the villages in the triangle between the San and the Vistula belonged to the marshal and his relatives; therefore all the peasants in those parts rose up as one man, for the marshal, unsparing of his own fortune, had announced that whoever took up arms would be freed from subjection. Scarcely had this news gone the round of the region when the peasants put their scythes on staffs and began to bring Swedish heads into camp: they brought them in every day till Lyubomirski was forced to prohibit that custom as unchristian. Then they brought in gloves and boots. The Swedes, driven to desperation, flayed those who fell into their hands; and the war became more and more dreadful. Some of the Polish troops adhered yet to the Swedes, but they adhered only through fear. On the road to Lejaysk many of them deserted; those who remained made such tumults in the camp daily that Karl Gustav gave orders to shoot a number of officers. This was the signal for a general withdrawal, which was effected sabre in hand. Few, if any, Poles remained; but Charnyetski, gaining new strength, attacked with still greater vigor.
The marshal gave most effectual assistance. During this period, which by the way was short, the nobler sides of Lyubomirski’s nature gained, perhaps, the upper hand over his pride and self-love; therefore he omitted no toil, he spared neither his health nor his person, he led squadrons frequently, gave the enemy no rest; and as he was a good soldier he rendered good services. These, added to his later ones, would have secured him a glorious memory in the nation, were it not for that shameless rebellion which toward the end of his career he raised in order to hinder the reform of the Commonwealth.
But at this time he did everything to win glory, and he covered himself with it as with a robe. Pan Vitovski, the castellan of Sandomir, an old and experienced soldier, vied with him. Vitovski wished to equal Charnyetski himself; but he could not, for God had denied him greatness.
All three crushed the Swedes more and more, and with such effect that the infantry and cavalry regiments, to whom it came to form the rearguard on the retreat, marched with so much fear that a panic arose among them from the slightest cause. Then Karl Gustav decided to march always with the rearguard, so as to give courage by his presence.
But in the very beginning he almost paid for this position with his life. It happened that having with him a detachment of the life-guards,—the largest of all the regiments, for the soldiers in it were selected from the whole Scandinavian people,—the king stopped for refreshment at the village of Rudnik. When he had dined with the parish priest he decided to sleep a little, since he had not closed his eyes the night preceding. The life-guards surrounded the house, to watch over the safety of the king. Meanwhile the priest’s horse-boy stole away from the village, and coming up to a mare in the field, sprang upon her colt and raced off to Charnyetski.
Charnyetski was ten miles distant at this time; but his vanguard, composed of the regiment of Prince Dymitri Vishnyevetski, was marching under Shandarovski, the lieutenant, about two miles behind the Swedes. Shandarovski was just talking to Roh Kovalski, who had ridden up that moment with orders from Charnyetski, when suddenly both saw the lad flying toward them at all horse speed.
“What devil is that racing up so,” asked Shandarovski, “and besides on a colt?”
“Some village lad,” said Kovalski.