“Did the prince bring back all his forces?”
“He was forced to leave the infantry, which is coming through the thickest forest, so as to escape the Tartars.”
“Such cavalry as the Tartar is made to go through the densest forests. I do not expect to see that infantry again. But no one is to blame, and the prince acted like an experienced leader.”
“The prince threw out one party the most considerable to Ostrolenko, to lead Gosyevski into error. He will go to Ostrolenko at once, thinking that our whole force is there.”
“That is well!” said Douglas, comforted. “We will manage Gosyevski.”
And he marched without delay to join Boguslav and Radzeyovski. They met that same day, to the great delight, especially, of Radzeyovski, who feared captivity more than death, for he knew that as a traitor and the originator of all the misfortunes of the Commonwealth he would have to give a terrible answer. But now, after the junction with Douglas, the Swedish army had more than four thousand men; therefore it was able to offer an effective resistance to the forces of the full hetman. He had, it is true, six thousand cavalry; but Tartars—except those of Babinich, who were trained—could not be used in offensive battle, and Pan Gosyevski himself, though a skilled and learned warrior, was not able, like Charnyetski, to inspire men with an enthusiasm which nothing could resist.
But Douglas was at a loss to understand why Yan Kazimir should send the full hetman beyond the Bug. The Swedish king with the elector was marching on Warsaw; a general battle must therefore follow, sooner or later. And though Yan Kazimir was at the head of a force superior in numbers to the Swedes and the Brandenburgers, still six thousand men formed too great a force for the King of Poland to set aside voluntarily.
It is true that Gosyevski had saved Babinich from trouble, but still the king did not need to send out a whole division to the rescue of Babinich. Hence there was in this expedition some secret object, which the Swedish general, despite all his penetration, could not divine.
In the letter of the King of Sweden sent a week later great alarm was evident, and as it were astonishment caused by that expedition, but a few words explained the reasons of this. According to the opinion of Karl Gustav, the hetman was not sent to attack Douglas’s army, nor to go to Lithuania to aid the uprising there, for in Lithuania the Swedes, as it was, were not able to do anything but to threaten Royal Prussia, namely, the eastern part of it, which was completely stripped of troops.
“The calculation is,” wrote the king, “to make the elector waver in faithfulness to the treaty of Marienburg and to us; which may easily happen, since the elector is ready to enter into alliance with Christ against the Devil and at the same time with the Devil against Christ, so as to win something from both.”