"It is time!" said Pan Longin.
"Time! time!" repeated Skshetuski, in a stifled voice. "Go with God!"
"With God, with God!"
"Farewell, brothers, and forgive me if I have offended any of you in anything."
"You offend? O God!" cried Zagloba, throwing himself into his arms.
Skshetuski and Volodyovski embraced him in turn. The moment came. Suppressed gulping shook the breasts of these knights. One alone, Pan Longin, was calm, though full of emotion. "Farewell!" he repeated once more; and approaching the edge of the rampart, he dropped into the ditch, and soon appeared as a black figure on the opposite bank. Once more he beckoned farewell to his comrades, and vanished in the gloom.
Between the road to Zalostsitse and the highway from Vishnyovets grew an oak-grove, interspersed with narrow openings. Beyond and joining with it was an old pine-forest, thick and large, extending north of Zalostsitse. Podbipienta had determined to reach that grove. The road is very perilous, for to reach the oaks it was necessary to pass along the entire flank of the Cossack tabor; but Pan Longin selected it on purpose, for it was just around the camp that most people were moving during the whole night, and the guards gave least attention to passers-by. Besides, other roads, valleys, thickets, and narrow places were set by guards who rode around continually, by essauls, sotniks, and even Hmelnitski himself. A passage through the meadows and along the Gnyezna was not to be dreamt for the Cossack horse-herders were watching there from dusk till daylight with their herds.
The night was gloomy, cloudy, and so dark that at ten paces not only could a man not be seen, but not even a tree. This circumstance was favorable for Pan Longin; though on the other hand he was obliged to go very slowly and carefully, so as not to fall into any of the pits or ditches, occupying the whole expanse of the battle-field and dug by Polish and Cossack hands. In this fashion he made way to the second Polish rampart, which had been abandoned just before evening, and had passed through the ditch. He stopped and listened; the trenches were empty. The sally made by Yeremi after the storm had pushed the Cossacks out, who either fell, or took refuge in the tabor. A multitude of bodies were lying on the slopes and summits of these mounds. Pan Longin stumbled against bodies every moment, stepped over them, and passed on. From time to time a low groan or sigh announced that some one of the prostrate was living yet.
Beyond the ramparts there was a broad expanse stretching to another trench made before the arrival of Yeremi, also covered with corpses; but some tens of steps farther on were those earth-shelters, like stacks of hay in the darkness. But they were empty. Everywhere the deepest silence reigned,--nowhere a fire or a man; no one on that former square but the prostrate.
Pan Longin began the prayer for the souls of the dead, and went on. The sounds of the Polish camp, which followed him to the second rampart, grew fainter and fainter, melting in the distance, till at last they ceased altogether. Pan Longin stopped and looked around for the last time. He could see almost nothing, for in the camp there was no light; but one window in the castle glimmered weakly as a star which the clouds now expose and now conceal, or like a glow-worm which shines and darkens in turn.