“We are prepared for everything,” they replied simply.
The good father continued:
“Have you a family? They may as well mourn for you beforehand; for we have no leave in our ranks, except to go to the mines of Siberia or to death. Have you reconciled yourselves to God? I can only lead you to death and prepare you to meet it. Are you ready to die for your country?” He paused, and then added: “There is still time to draw back. I can facilitate your return to your homes. Weigh the matter well before you decide.”
“No, no!” they exclaimed with one voice, “we will not turn back. We wish to fight to-day, to-morrow—when you will—but to fight and die for our country. A cheer for Poland! Another cheer for our Mother!”
“My brethren,” began the venerable priest again, “do not give way to illusions. You are lost if you imagine that you can conquer the enemy in a few months. Woe be to us all if we forget that it is a giant’s struggle in which we are engaged, and that a whole generation must perish before we can expiate the sins of our fathers! Therefore I ask you again: Are you ready to march to battle, knowing that in the end you must be defeated, that you must be overpowered by numbers, and that you have nothing to hope for either in victory or defeat—nothing, not even glory, which lays its crowns of laurel on the graves of the brave?”
Here his voice faltered; but, mastering his emotion, the venerable old man, lifting his eyes to heaven and stretching out his hands towards the crucifix, exclaimed with almost superhuman enthusiasm: “O my God! thou who knowest the hearts of all men, give to these thy servants the spirit of courage, self-sacrifice, and faith. Blot out the memory of our beloved Warsaw from their hearts, and with it the remembrance of their mothers, their sisters, their betrothed! Let them henceforth see naught but the glorious army of martyrs and their mother Poland, torn and blood-stained. Let their ears be closed to all whispers of home, and be open only to hear the laments of the widows and orphans, the groans from the depth of the dungeons, the cries which the east wind brings us across Muscovy from the Siberian mines! May they have but one thought, one wish, one will—to pursue and annihilate this Russian vampire, which for nearly a century has fastened on the breasts of our Virgin of Poland, and has become drunk with her tears and with her blood!”
“May God hear and grant thy prayer!” replied the volunteers with one voice. “What thou willest we will; what thou commandest we will do. Lead us to death or to torture; we will not shrink from either.”
A look of deep joy lit up for a moment the old man’s face and made him seem as one inspired. He blessed the banner, and then gave out the Polish national hymn, Boze cós Polske przesz tak licznie wieki, of which the following is an English translation:[[182]]
I.
O God! who gave Poland her wonderful dower