Fire in the Steppe (31 page)

"Since complete darkness had come, I determined to stay in that spot for the night, though there was nothing to make a fire. God gave a warm night, and my men lay down on horse-blankets; but I went again under the cross to repeat the usual 'Our Father' at the feet of Christ and commit myself to His mercy. I thought that my prayer would be the more thankfully accepted, because the day had passed in toil and in deeds of a kind that I accounted to myself as a service.

"It happens frequently to a wearied soldier to fall asleep at his evening prayers. It happened so to me. The dragoons, seeing how I was kneeling with head resting on the cross, understood that I was sunk in pious meditation, and no one wished to interrupt me; my eyes closed at once, and a wonderful dream came down to me from that cross. I do not say that I had a vision, for I was not and am not worthy of that; but sleeping soundly, I saw as if I had been awake the whole Passion of the Lord. At sight of the suffering of the Innocent Lamb the heart was crushed in me, tears dropped from my eyes, and measureless pity took hold of me. 'O Lord,' said I, 'I have a handful of good men. Dost Thou wish to see what our cavalry can do? Only beckon with Thy head, and I will bear apart on sabres in one twinkle those such sons, Thy executioners.' I had barely said this when all vanished from the eye; there remained only the cross, and on it Christ, weeping tears of blood. I embraced the foot of the holy tree then, and sobbed. How long this lasted, I know not; but afterward, when I had grown calm somewhat, I said again, 'O Lord, O Lord! why didst Thou announce Thy holy teaching among hardened Jews? Hadst Thou come from Palestine to our Commonwealth, surely we should not have nailed Thee to the cross, but would have received Thee splendidly, given Thee all manner of gifts, and made Thee a noble for the greater increase of Thy divine glory. Why didst Thou not do this, O Lord?'

"I raise my eyes,—this was all in a dream, you remember, gentlemen,—and what do I see? Behold, our Lord looks on me severely; He frowns, and suddenly speaks in a loud voice: 'Cheap is your nobility at this time; during war every low fellow may buy it, but no more of this! You are worthy of each other, both you and the ruffians; and each and the other of you are worse than the Jews, for you nail me here to the cross every day. Have I not enjoined love, even for enemies, and forgiveness of sins? But you tear each other's entrails like mad beasts. Wherefore I, seeing this, suffer unendurable torment. You yourself, who wish to rescue me, and invite me to the Commonwealth, what have you done? See, corpses are lying here around my cross, and you have bespattered the foot of it with blood; and still there were among them innocent persons,—young boys, or blinded men, who, having care from no one, followed others like foolish sheep. Had you mercy on them; did you judge them before death? No! You gave command to slay them all for my sake, and still thought that you were giving comfort to me. In truth, it is one thing to punish and reprove as a father punishes a son, or as an elder brother reproves a younger brother, and another to seek revenge without judgment, without measure, in punishing and without recognizing cruelty. It has gone so far in this land that wolves are more merciful than men; that the grass is sweating bloody dew; that the winds do not blow, but howl; that the rivers flow in tears, and people stretch forth their hands to death, saying, "Oh, our refuge!"'

"'O Lord,' cried I, 'are they better than we? Who has committed the greatest cruelty? Who brought in the Pagan?'

"'Love them while chastising,' said the Lord, 'and then the beam will fall from their eyes, hardness will leave their hearts, and my mercy will be upon you. Otherwise the onrush of Tartars will come, and they will lay bonds upon you and upon them, and you will be forced to serve the enemy in suffering, in contempt, in tears, till the day in which you love one another. But if you exceed the measure in hatred, then there will not be mercy for one or the other, and the Pagan will possess this land for the ages of ages.'

"I grew terrified hearing such commands, and long I was unable to speak till, throwing myself on my face, I asked, 'O Lord, what have I to do to wash away my sins?' To this the Lord said, 'Go, repeat my words; proclaim love.' After that my dream ended.

"As night in summer is short, I woke up about dawn, all covered with dew. I looked; the heads were lying in a circle about the cross, but already they were blue. A wonderful thing,—yesterday that sight delighted me; to-day terror took hold of me, especially at sight of one youth, perhaps seventeen years of age, who was exceedingly beautiful. I ordered the soldiers to bury the bodies decently under that cross; from that day forth I was not the same man.

"At first I thought to myself, the dream is an illusion; but still it was thrust into my memory, and, as it were, took possession of my whole existence. I did not dare to suppose that the Lord Himself talked with me, for, as I have said, I did not feel myself worthy of that; but it might be that conscience, hidden in my soul in time of war, like a Tartar in the grass, spoke up suddenly, announcing God's will. I went to confession; the priest confirmed that supposition. 'It is,' said he, 'the evident will and forewarning of God; obey, or it will be ill with thee.'

"Thenceforth I began to proclaim love. But the officers laughed at me to my eyes. 'What!' said they, 'is this a priest to give us instruction? Is it little insult that these dog brothers have worked upon God? Are the churches that they have burned few in number; are the crosses that they have insulted not many? Are we to love them for this?' In one word, no one would listen to me.

"After Berestechko I put on these priestly robes so as to announce with greater weight the word and the will of God. For more than twenty years I have done this without rest. God is merciful; He will not punish me, because thus far my voice is a voice crying in the wilderness.

"Gracious gentlemen, love your enemies, punish them as a father, reprimand them as an elder brother, otherwise woe to them, but woe to you also, woe to the whole Commonwealth!

"Look around; what is the result of this war and the animosity of brother against brother? This land has become a desert; I have graves in Ushytsa instead of parishioners; churches, towns, and villages are in ruins; the Pagan power is rising and growing over us like a sea, which is ready to swallow even thee, O rock of Kamenyets."

Pan Nyenashinyets listened with great emotion to the speech of the priest, so that the sweat came out on his forehead; then he spoke thus, amid general silence:—

"That among Cossacks there are worthy cavaliers, a proof is here present in Pan Motovidlo, whom we all love and respect. But when it comes to the general love, of which Father Kaminski has spoken so eloquently, I confess that I have lived in grievous sin hitherto, for that love was not in me, and I have not striven to gain it. Now his grace has opened my eyes somewhat. Without special favor from God I shall not find such love in my heart, because I bear there the memory of a cruel injustice, which I will relate to you briefly."

"Let us drink something warm," said Zagloba.

"Throw horn-beam on the fire," said Basia to the attendants.

And soon after the broad room was bright again with light, and before each of the knights an attendant placed a quart of heated beer. All moistened their mustaches in it willingly; and when they had taken one and a second draught. Pan Nyenashinyets collected his voice again, and spoke as if a wagon were rumbling,—

"My mother when dying committed to my care a sister; Halshka was her name. I had no wife nor children, therefore I loved that girl as the apple of my eye. She was twenty years younger than I, and I had carried her in my arms, I looked on her simply as my own child. Later I went on a campaign, and the horde took her captive. When I came home I beat my head against the wall. My property had vanished in time of the invasion; but I sold what I had, put my last saddle on a horse, and went with Armenians to ransom my sister. I found her in Bagchesarai. She was attached to the harem, not in the harem, for she was only twelve years of age then. I shall never forget the hour when I found thee, O Halshka. How thou didst embrace my neck! how thou didst kiss me in the eyes! But what! It turned out that the money I had brought was too little. The girl was beautiful. Yehu Aga, who carried her away, asked three times as much for her. I offered to give myself in addition, but that did not help. She was bought in the market before my eyes by Tugai Bey, that famous enemy of ours, who wished to keep her three years in his harem and then make her his wife. I returned, tearing my hair. On the road home I discovered that in a Tartar village by the sea one of Tugai Bey's wives was dwelling with his favorite son Azya. Tugai Bey had wives in all the towns and in many villages, so as to have everywhere a resting-place under his own roof. Hearing of this son, I thought that God would show me the last means of salvation for Halshka. At once I determined to bear away that son, and then exchange him for my sister; but I could not do this alone. It was necessary to assemble a band in the Ukraine, or the Wilderness, which was not easy,—first, because the name of Tugai Bey was terrible in all Russia, and secondly, he was helping the Cossacks against us. But not a few heroes were wandering through the steppes,—men looking to their own profit only and ready to go anywhere for plunder. I collected a notable party of those. What we passed through before our boats came out on the sea tongue cannot tell, for we had to hide before the Cossack commanders. But God blessed us. I stole Azya, and with him splendid booty. We returned to the Wilderness in safety. I wished to go thence to Kamenyets and commence negotiations with merchants of that place.

"I divided all the booty among my heroes, reserving for myself Tugai Bey's whelp alone; and since I had acted with such liberality, since I had suffered so many dangers with those men, had endured hunger with them, and risked my life for them, I thought that each one would spring into the fire for me, that I had won their hearts for the ages.

"I had reason to repent of that bitterly and soon. It had not come to my head that they tear their own ataman to pieces, to divide his plunder between themselves afterward; I forgot that among them there are no men of faith, virtue, gratitude, or conscience. Near Kamenyets the hope of a rich ransom for Azya tempted my followers. They fell on me in the night-time like wolves, throttled me with a rope, cut my body with knives, and at last, thinking me dead, threw me aside in the desert and fled with the boy.

"God sent me rescue and gave back my health; but my Halshka is gone forever. Maybe she is living there yet somewhere; maybe after the death of Tugai Bey another Pagan took her; maybe she has received the faith of Mohammed; maybe she has forgotten her brother; maybe her son will shed my blood sometime. That is my history."

Here Pan Nyenashinyets stopped speaking and looked on the ground gloomily.

"What streams of our blood and tears have flowed for these regions!" said Pan Mushalski.

"Thou shalt love thine enemies," put in Father Kaminski.

"And when you came to health did you not look for that whelp?" asked Zagloba.

"As I learned afterward," answered Pan Nyenashinyets, "another band fell on my robbers and cut them to pieces; they must have taken the child with the booty. I searched everywhere, but he vanished as a stone dropped into water."

"Maybe you met him afterward, but could not recognize him," said Basia.

"I do not know whether the child was as old as three years. I barely learned that his name was Azya. But I should have recognized him, for he had tattooed over each breast a fish in blue."

All at once Mellehovich, who had sat in silence hitherto, spoke with a strange voice from the corner of the room, "You would not have known him by the fish, for many Tartars bear the same sign, especially those who live near the water."

"Not true," answered the hoary Pan Hromyka; "after Berestechko we examined the carrion of Tugai Bey,—for it remained on the field; and I know that he had fish on his breast, and all the other slain Tartars had different marks."

"But I tell you that many wear fish."

"True; but they are of the devilish Tugai Bey stock."

Further conversation was stopped by the entrance of Pan Lelchyts, whom Pan Michael had sent on a reconnoissance that morning, and who had returned just then.

"Pan Commandant," said he in the door, "at Sirotski Brod, on the Moldavian side, there is some sort of band moving toward us."

"What kind of people are they?" asked Pan Michael.

"Robbers. There are a few Wallachians, a few Hungarians; most of them are men detached from the horde, altogether about two hundred in number."

"Those are the same of whom I have tidings that they are plundering on the Moldavian side," said Volodyovski, "The perkulab must have made it hot for them there, hence they are escaping toward us; but of the horde alone there will be about two hundred. They will cross in the night, and at daylight we shall intercept them. Pan Motovidlo and Mellehovich will be ready at midnight. Drive forward a small herd of bullocks to entice them, and now to your quarters."

The soldiers began to separate, but not all had left the room yet when Basia ran up to her husband, threw her arms around his neck, and began to whisper in his ear. He laughed, and shook his head repeatedly; evidently she was insisting, while pressing her arms around his neck with more vigor. Seeing this, Zagloba said,—

"Give her this pleasure once; if you do, I, old man, will clatter on with you."

Independent detachments, occupied in robbery on both banks of the Dniester, were made up of men of all nationalities inhabiting the neighboring countries. Runaway Tartars from the Dobrudja and Belgrod hordes, wilder still and braver than their Crimean brethren, always preponderated in them; but there were not lacking either Wallachians, Cossacks, Hungarians, Polish domestics escaped from stanitsas on the banks of the Dniester. They ravaged now on the Polish, now on the Moldavian side, crossing and recrossing the boundary river, as they were hunted by the perkulab's forces or by the commandants of the Commonwealth. They had their almost inaccessible hiding-places in ravines, forests, and caves. The main object of their attacks was the herds of cattle and horses belonging to the stanitsas; these herds did not leave the steppes even in winter, seeking sustenance for themselves under the snow. But, besides, the robbers attacked villages, hamlets, settlements, smaller commands, Polish and even Turkish merchants, intermediaries going with ransom to the Crimea. These bands had their own order and their leaders, but they joined forces rarely. It happened often even that larger bands cut down smaller ones. They had increased greatly everywhere in the Russian regions, especially since the time of the Cossack wars, when safety of every kind vanished in those parts. The bands on the Dniester, reinforced by fugitives from the horde, were peculiarly terrible. Some appeared numbering five hundred. Their leaders took the title of "bey." They ravaged the country in a manner thoroughly Tartar, and more than once the commandants themselves did not know whether they had to do with bandits or with advance chambuls of the whole horde. Against mounted troops, especially the cavalry of the Commonwealth, these bands could not stand in the open field; but, caught in a trap, they fought desperately, knowing well that if taken captive the halter was waiting for them. Their arms were various. Bows and guns were lacking them, which, however, were of little use in night attacks. The greater part were armed with daggers and Turkish yataghans, sling-shots, Tartar sabres, and with horse-skulls fastened to oak clubs with cords. This last weapon, in strong hands, did terrible service, for it smashed every sabre. Some had very long forks pointed with iron, some spears; these in sudden emergencies they used against cavalry.