"And the next day a journey," said Zagloba.
They turned, said their prayers, and then lay down near the fire.
Soon the fires began to go out one after another. Silence embraced the camp; but the moon cast on the men silver rays, with which it illumined every little while new groups of sleepers. The silence was broken only by the universal, mighty snoring, and the call of the sentinels watching the camp.
But sleep did not close the heavy lids of the soldiers long. Scarcely had the first dawn whitened the shadows of night when the trumpets in every corner of the camp thundered the reveille.
An hour later the prince, to the great astonishment of the knights, drew back along the whole line.
CHAPTER XXXII.
But it was the retreat of a lion needing room for a spring.
The prince purposely allowed Krívonos to cross so as to inflict on him the greater defeat. In the very beginning of the battle he had the cavalry turned and urged on as if in flight, seeing which the men of the lower country and the mob broke their ranks to overtake and surround him. Then Yeremi turned suddenly, and with his whole cavalry struck them at once so terribly that they were unable to resist. The prince's troops pursued them five miles to the crossing, then over the bridges, the embankment, and two miles and a half to the camp, cutting and killing them without mercy. The hero of the day was the sixteen-year-old Pan Aksak, who gave the first blow and produced the first disorder. Only with such an army, old and trained, could the prince use such stratagems, and feign flight which in any other ranks might become real. This being the case, the second day ended still more disastrously for Krívonos than the first. All his field-pieces were taken, and a number of flags,--among them several royal flags captured by the Cossacks at Korsún. If the infantry of Koritski and Osinski with the cannon of Vurtsel could have followed the cavalry, the camp would have been taken at a blow. But before they came up it was night, and the enemy had already retreated a considerable distance, so that it was impossible to reach them. But Zatsvilikhovski captured half the camp, and with it enormous supplies of arms and provisions. The crowd seized Krívonos twice, wishing to give him up to the prince; and the promise of an immediate return to Hmelnitski barely sufficed to save him. He fled therefore with the remaining half of his tabor, with a decimated army, beaten and in despair, and did not halt till he reached Makhnovka, where when Hmelnitski came up, in the moment of his first anger, he ordered him to be chained by the neck to a cannon.
But when his first anger had passed the Zaporojian hetman remembered that the unfortunate Krívonos had covered Volynia with blood, captured Polónnoe, and sent thousands of nobles to the other world, left their bodies without burial, and had been victorious everywhere till he met Yeremi. For these services the Zaporojian hetman took pity on him, and not only ordered him to be freed immediately from the cannon, but restored him to command, and sent him to Podolia to new conquests and slaughters.
The prince now announced to his army the rest so much desired. In the last battle it had suffered considerable losses, especially at the storming of the tabor by the cavalry, behind which the Cossacks defended themselves with equal stubbornness and adroitness. Five hundred soldiers were killed; Colonel Mokrski, severely wounded, died soon after; Pan Kushel, Ponyatovski, and young Aksak were shot, but not dangerously; and Zagloba, becoming accustomed to the throng, took his place manfully with the others, struck twice with a flail, he fell on his back, and being unable to move, lay as dead in Skshetuski's wagon.