Skshetuski, who had gone as a volunteer with the Wallachians, returned first toward morning and went straightway to the prince.
"What is the trouble?" asked Yeremi.
"Your Highness, the woods are on fire."
"Set on fire?"
"Yes; I seized a number of men who confessed that Hmelnitski had sent volunteers to follow you and to set fire, if the wind should be favorable."
"He wanted to roast us alive without giving battle. Bring the people here!"
In a moment three herdsmen were brought,--wild, stupid, terrified,--who immediately confessed that they were in fact commanded to set fire to the woods. They confessed also that forces were despatched after the prince, but that they were going to Chernigoff by another road, nearer the Dnieper.
Meanwhile other scouts returned. All brought the same report: "The woods are on fire."
But the prince did not allow himself to be disturbed in the least by this. "It is a villanous method," said he; "but nothing will come of it. The fire will not go beyond the rivers entering the Trubej."
In fact, into the Trubej, along which the army marched to the north, there fell so many small rivers forming here and there broad morasses, impassable for fire, that it would have been necessary to ignite the woods beyond each one of them separately. The scouts soon discovered that this was being done. Every day incendiaries were brought in; with these they ornamented the pine-trees along the road.