"Look, gentlemen! I taught him to use the sabre. Well done! If he goes on, with God's help, he will equal me soon."
But now the sun had gone down, and each skirmisher began to withdraw slowly from the field, on which remained only bodies of horses and men. From the town the first sounds of the "Ave Maria" were heard.
Night fell gradually; still darkness did not come, for fires in the country about gave light. Zalostsitse, Barzyntse, Lublyanki, Striyovka, Kretovitse, Zarudzie, Vakhlovka were burning; and the whole vicinity, as far as the eye could reach, was blazing in one conflagration. The smoke in the night became red; the stars were shining on the rosy background of the sky. Clouds of birds rose from the forests, thickets, and ponds with a tremendous noise, circled in the air lighted by the burning, and looked like flying flames. The cattle in the camp, terrified by the unusual spectacle, began to bellow plaintively.
"It cannot be," said old soldiers to one another in the trenches, "that the Tartars of that party have set such fires; surely Hmelnitski, with the Cossacks and the whole horde, are advancing."
These were not empty surmises, for Pan Serakovski had brought intelligence on the preceding day that the Zaporojian hetman and the Khan were in the rear of that party. They were expected therefore with certainty. The soldiers were in the trenches to a man; the citizens were on the roofs and towers; all hearts were unquiet; women were sobbing in the churches, stretching out their hands to the most holy sacrament. Uncertainty, worse than all, oppressed with immeasurable weight the town, the castle, and the camp.
But it did not last long. Night had not fallen completely when the first ranks of the Cossacks and Tartars appeared on the horizon; then the second, third, tenth, hundredth, thousandth. You would have said all the forests and groves had torn themselves suddenly from their roots, and were marching on Zbaraj. In vain did the eye seek the end of those ranks; as far as the eye reached swarms of men and horses were blackening, vanishing in the smokes and fires of the distance. They moved like clouds, or like locusts which cover the whole country with their terrible moving mass. Before them went the threatening rumble of human voices, like wind in a forest among the branches of the ancient pines; then, halting about a mile and a quarter away, they began to settle down and make fires for the night.
"You see the fires," whispered the soldiers; "they extend farther than a horse could go in one journey."
"Jesus and Mary!" said Zagloba to Skshetuski. "I tell you there is a lion in me and I feel no alarm; but I would that a blazing thunderbolt might crush them all before morning. As God is dear to me, there are too many of them. Unless perhaps in the valley of Jehoshaphat there will not be a greater crowd. And tell me, what do those scoundrels want? Would not every dog-brother of them be better at home, working his serfage peaceably for his land? What fault is it of ours if God has made us nobles and them trash, and commanded them to obey? Tfu! I am beside myself with rage. I am a mild-mannered man, soft as a plaster; but let them not rouse me to anger! They have had too much freedom, too much bread; they have multiplied like mice in a barn; and now they are dying to get at the cats. Ah, wait! There is one cat here called Yeremi, and another called Zagloba. What do you think, will those two enter upon negotiations? If the rebels had surrendered with obedience, then their lives might be granted, might they not? One thing disturbs me continually,--are there provisions enough in the camp? Oh, to the devil! Look, gentlemen; fires beyond fires, and still fires! May black death fall on such a crowd!"
"Why talk about treaties," said Skshetuski, "when they think they have us all under their hands, and will get us to-morrow?"
"But they won't get us, will they?" asked Zagloba.