The Deluge. Vol. 2. Генрик Сенкевич

men went out for him at once, and half an hour later they brought his body; for Kordetski wished to honor him with a fitting burial.

      But the quiet of night, once broken, did not return till white day. From the walls cannon were playing; in the Swedish positions the greatest confusion continued. The enemy not knowing well their own losses, not knowing whence the aggressor might come, fled from the trenches nearest the cloister. Whole regiments wandered in despairing disorder till morning, mistaking frequently their own for the enemy, and firing at one another. Even in the main camp were soldiers and officers who abandoned their tents and remained under the open sky, awaiting the end of that ghastly night. Alarming news flew from mouth to mouth. Some said that succor had come to the fortress, others asserted that all the nearer intrenchments were captured.

      Miller, Sadovski, the Prince of Hesse, Count Veyhard, and other superior officers, made superhuman exertions to bring the terrified regiments to order. At the same time the cannonade of the cloister was answered by balls of fire, to scatter the darkness and enable fugitives to assemble. One of the balls struck the roof of the chapel, but striking only the edge of it, returned with rattling and crackling toward the camp, casting a flood of flame through the air.

      At last the night of tumult was ended. The cloister and the Swedish camp became still. Morning had begun to whiten the summits of the church, the roofs took on gradually a ruddy light, and day came.

      In that hour Miller, at the head of his staff, rode to the captured trench. They could, it is true, see him from the cloister and open fire; but the old general cared not for that. He wished to see with his own eyes all the injury, and count the slain. The staff followed him; all were disturbed, – they had sorrow and seriousness in their faces. When they reached the intrenchment, they dismounted and began to ascend. Traces of the struggle were visible everywhere; lower down than the guns were the overthrown tents; some were still open, empty, silent. There were piles of bodies, especially among the tents; half-naked corpses, mangled, with staring eyes, and with terror stiffened in their dead eyeballs, presented a dreadful sight. Evidently all these men had been surprised in deep sleep; some of them were barefoot; it was a rare one who grasped his rapier in his dead hand; almost no one wore a helmet or a cap. Some were lying in tents, especially at the side of the entrance; these, it was apparent, had barely succeeded in waking; others, at the sides of tents, were caught by death at the moment when they were seeking safety in flight. Everywhere there were many bodies, and in places such piles that it might be thought some cataclysm of nature had killed those soldiers; but the deep wounds in their faces and breasts, some faces blackened by shots, so near that all the powder had not been burned, testified but too plainly that the hand of man had caused the destruction.

      Miller went higher, to the guns; they were standing dumb, spiked, no more terrible now than logs of wood; across one of them lay hanging on both sides the body of a gunner, almost cut in two by the terrible sweep of a scythe. Blood had flowed over the carriage and formed a broad pool beneath it. Miller observed everything minutely, in silence and with frowning brow. No officer dared break that silence. For how could they bring consolation to that aged general, who had been beaten like a novice through his own want of care? That was not only defeat, but shame; for the general himself had called that fortress a hen-house, and promised to crush it between his fingers, for he had nine thousand soldiers, and there were two hundred men in the garrison; finally, that general was a soldier, blood and bone, and against him were monks.

      That day had a grievous beginning for Miller.

      Now the infantry came up and began to carry out bodies. Four of them, bearing on a stretcher a corpse, stopped before the general without being ordered.

      Miller looked at the stretcher and closed his eyes.

      "De Fossis," said he, in a hollow voice.

      Scarcely had they gone aside when others came, this time Sadovski moved toward them and called from a distance, turning to the staff, —

      "They are carrying Horn!"

      But Horn was alive yet, and had before him long days of atrocious suffering. A peasant had cut him with the very point of a scythe; but the blow was so fearful that it opened the whole framework of his breast. Still the wounded man retained his presence of mind. Seeing Miller and the staff, he smiled, wished to say something, but instead of a sound there came through his lips merely rose-colored froth; then he began to blink, and fainted.

      "Carry him to my tent," said Miller, "and let my doctor attend to him immediately."

      Then the officers heard him say to himself, —

      "Horn, Horn, – I saw him last night in a dream, – just in the evening. A terrible thing, beyond comprehension!"

      And fixing his eyes on the ground, he dropped into deep thought; all at once he was roused from his revery by the voice of Sadovski, who cried: "General! look there, there – the cloister!"

      Miller looked and was astonished. It was broad day and clear, only fogs were hanging over the earth; but the sky was clear and blushing from the light of the morning. A white fog hid the summit itself of Yasna Gora, and according to the usual order of things ought to hide the church, but by a peculiar phenomenon the church, with the tower, was raised, not only above the cliff, but above the fog, high, high, – precisely as if it had separated from its foundations and was hanging in the blue under the dome of the sky. The cries of the soldiers announced that they too saw the phenomenon.

      "That fog deceives the eye!" said Miller.

      "The fog is lying under the church," answered Sadovski.

      "It is a wonderful thing; but that church is ten times higher than it was yesterday, and hangs in the air," said the Prince of Hesse.

      "It is going yet! higher, higher!" cried the soldiers. "It will vanish from the eye!"

      In fact the fog hanging on the cliff began to rise toward the sky in the form of an immense pillar of smoke; the church planted, as it were, on the summit of that pillar, seemed to rise higher each instant; at the same time when it was far up, as high as the clouds themselves, it was veiled more and more with vapor; you would have said that it was melting, liquefying; it became more indistinct, and at last vanished altogether.

      Miller turned to the officers, and in his eyes were depicted astonishment and a superstitious dread.

      "I acknowledge, gentlemen," said he, "that I have never seen such a thing in my life, altogether opposed to nature: it must be the enchantment of papists."

      "I have heard," said Sadovski, "soldiers crying out, 'How can you fire at such a fortress?' In truth I know not how."

      "But what is there now?" cried the Prince of Hesse. "Is that church in the fog, or is it gone?"

      "Though this were an ordinary phenomenon of nature, in any event it forebodes us no good. See, gentlemen, from the time that we came here we have not advanced one step."

      "If," answered Sadovski, "we had only not advanced; but to tell the truth, we have suffered defeat after defeat, and last night was the worst. The soldiers losing willingness lose courage, and will begin to be negligent. You have no idea of what they say in the regiments. Besides, wonderful things take place; for instance, for a certain time no man can go alone, or even two men, out of the camp; whoever does so is as if he had fallen through the earth, as if wolves were prowling around Chenstohova. I sent myself, not long since, a banneret and three men to Vyelunie for warm clothing, and from that day, no tidings of them."

      "It will be worse when winter comes; even now the nights are unendurable," added the Prince of Hesse.

      "The mist is growing thinner!" said Miller, on a sudden.

      In fact a breeze rose and began to blow away the vapors. In the bundles of fog something began to quiver; finally the sun rose and the air grew transparent. The walls of the cloister were outlined faintly, then out came the church and the cloister. Everything was in its old place. The fortress was quiet and still, as if people were not living in it.

      "General," said the Prince of Hesse, with energy, "try negotiations again, it is needful to finish at once."

      "But if negotiations lead to nothing, do you, gentlemen, advise to give up the siege?" asked