But others were “sticking” yet; victory might still incline to the Prussians, especially as at the tabor stood two regiments intact, which, since the tabor was safe, might be summoned at any moment.
Waldeck had in truth lost his head. Israel was not present, for he had been sent with the cavalry; but Boguslav was watching and managing everything. He led the whole battle, and seeing the increase of great peril, sent Pan Byes for those regiments.
Byes urged on his horse, and half an hour later returned bareheaded, with terror and despair in his face.
“The horde is in the tabor!” shouted he, hurrying up to Boguslav.
At that moment unearthly howling was heard on the right wing; this howling came nearer and nearer.
Suddenly appeared crowds of Swedish horsemen approaching in terrible panic; after them were fleeing weaponless, bareheaded infantry; after the infantry, in confusion and disorder, came wagons drawn by wild and terrified horses. All this mass was rushing at random from the tabor toward the infantry in the meadow. In a moment they fell on the infantry, put them into disorder, scattered them, especially when in front they were pressed by Lithuanian cavalry.
“Hassan Bey has reached the tabor!” cried Gosyevski, with ecstasy; and he let out his last two squadrons like falcons from their rest.
At the same moment that these two squadrons strike the infantry in front, their own wagons rush against them on the flank. The last quadrangles burst as if under the stroke of a hammer. Of the whole brilliant Swedish-Prussian army there is formed one gigantic mass, in which the cavalry are mingled with the infantry. Men are overturning, trampling, and suffocating one another; they throw off their clothing, cast away their arms. The cavalry press them, cut them, crush them, mash them. It is no longer a battle lost; it is a ruin, one of the most ghastly of the war.
Boguslav, seeing that all was lost, resolved to save at least himself and some of the cavalry. With superhuman exertion he collected a few hundred horsemen, and was fleeing along the left wing in the direction of the river’s course.
He had already escaped from the main whirl, when Prince Michael Radzivill, leading his own hussars, struck him on the flank and scattered his whole detachment at a blow. After this Boguslav’s men fled singly or in small groups. They could be saved only by the speed of their horses.