Sapyeha, grand hetman of Lithuania and voevoda of Vilna, came from the other side and took his position on the San.
The Swedes were invested completely; they were caught as it were in a vise.
“The trap is closed!” said the soldiers to one another in the Polish camps.
For every man, even the least acquainted with military art, understood that inevitable destruction was hanging over the invaders, unless reinforcements should come in time and rescue them from trouble.
The Swedes too understood this. Every morning officers and soldiers, coming to the shore of the Vistula, looked with despair in their eyes and their hearts at the legions of Charnyetski’s terrible cavalry standing black on the other side.
Then they went to the San; there again the troops of Sapyeha were watching day and night, ready to receive them with sabre and musket.
To cross either the San or the Vistula while both armies stood near was not to be thought of. The Swedes might return to Yaroslav by the same road over which they come, but they knew that in that case not one of them would ever see Sweden.
For the Swedes grievous days and still more grievous nights now began, for these days and nights were uproarious and quarrelsome. Again provisions were at an end.
Meanwhile Charnyetski, leaving command of the army to Lyubomirski and taking the Lauda squadron as guard crossed the Vistula above the mouth of the San, to visit Sapyeha and take counsel with him touching the future of the war.
This time the mediation of Zagloba was not needed to make the two leaders agree; for both loved the country more than each one himself, both were ready to sacrifice to it private interests, self-love, and ambition.