Kmita tore the hair from his head and wrung his hands; he seized the wet earth, pressed palms-full of it to his burning head.
“I shall fall too,” said he; “but first this land will swim in blood.”
And he began to fight like a man in despair. He did not hide longer, he did not attack in the forest and reeds, he sought death; he rushed like a madman on forces three times greater than his own, and cut them to pieces with sabres and hoofs. In his Tartars all traces of human feeling died out, and they were turned into a herd of wild beasts. A predatory people, but not over-much fitted for fighting in the open field, without losing their genius for surprises and ambush, they, by continual exercise, by continual conflict, had trained themselves so that breast to breast they could hold the field against the first cavalry, and scatter quadrangles even of the Swedish guard. In their struggles with the armed mob of Prussia, a hundred of those Tartars scattered with ease two and even three hundred sturdy men armed with spears and muskets.
Kmita weaned them from weighting themselves with plunder; they took only money and gold, which they sewed up in their saddles, so that when one of them fell the survivors fought with rage for his horse and his saddle. Growing rich in this manner, they lost none of their swiftness, well-nigh superhuman. Recognizing that under no leader on earth could they find such rich harvests, they grew attached to Babinich, as hounds to the hunter, and with real Mohammedan honesty placed after battle in the hands of Soroka and the Kyemliches the lion’s share of the plunder which belonged to the “bagadyr.”
“Allah!” said Akbah Ulan, “few of them will see Bagche-Serai, but all who go back will be murzas.”
Babinich, who from of old knew how to live upon war, collected great riches; but death, which he sought more than gold, he found not.
A month passed again in battles and labors surpassing belief. The Tartar horses, though fed with barley and Prussian wheat, needed absolutely even a couple of days’ rest; therefore the young colonel, wishing also to gain news and fill the gaps in his ranks with fresh volunteers, withdrew, near Dospada, to the Commonwealth.
News soon came, and so joyful that Kmita almost lost his wits. It turned out to be true that the equally valiant and unfortunate Yan Kazimir had lost a great three-days’ battle at Warsaw, but for what reason?
The general militia in an immense majority had gone home, and the part which remained did not fight with such spirit as at the taking of Warsaw, and on the third day of the battle a panic set in. But for the first two days the victory was inclining to the side of Poland. The regular troops, not in sudden partisan warfare, but in a great battle with the most highly trained soldiers of Europe, exhibited such skill and endurance that amazement seized the Swedish and Brandenburg generals themselves.
Yan Kazimir had won immortal glory. It was said that he had shown himself a leader equal to Karl Gustav, and that if all his commands had been carried out the enemy would have lost the general battle, and the war would have been ended.