With Fire and Sword. Генрик Сенкевич
the war is at an end, the wave is broken at the threshold!" thought he. "Pan Charnetski was right: the forces of the Commonwealth are unexhausted, its power unbroken."
When he thought of this, pride swelled his breast, – not ignoble pride, coming from a hoped-for satisfaction of vengeance, from the conquest of an enemy; not the gaining of freedom, which now he expected every moment; nor because caps were removed before him; but he felt proud because he was a son of that victorious and mighty Commonwealth, against whose gates every malice, every attack, every blow, is broken and crushed like the powers of hell against the gates of heaven. He felt proud, as a patriotic nobleman, that he had received strength in his despondency, and was not deceived in his faith. He desired no revenge.
"She has conquered like a queen, she will forgive like a mother," thought he.
Meanwhile the roar of cannon was changed to prolonged thunder. Horses' hoofs clattered again over the empty streets. A Cossack, bareheaded and in his shirt-sleeves, dashed into the square on a barebacked horse, with the speed of a thunderbolt; his face, cut open with a sword, was streaming with blood. He reined in the horse, stretched forth his hands, and when he had taken breath, with open mouth began to cry, -
"Hmelnitski is beating the Poles! The serene great mighty lords, the hetmans and colonels, are conquered, – the knights and the cavalry!"
When he had said this, he reeled and fell to the ground. The men of Mirgorod sprang to assist him.
Flame and pallor passed over the face of Skshetuski.
"What does he say?" asked he feverishly of Zakhar. "What has happened? It cannot be. By the living God, it cannot be!"
Silence! Only the hissing of flames on the opposite side of the square, shaking out clusters of sparks, and from time to time a burnt house falls with a crash.
Now more couriers rush in. "Beaten are the Poles, – beaten!"
After them follow a detachment of Tartars. They march slowly, for they surround men on foot, evidently prisoners.
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