The enemy began their attack from a distance. The splashing of balls on the water was mingled with the whistling of arrows and the groans of the wounded. The Tartars, shouting "Allah!" with increased shrillness, urged one another on. The Cossack cries: "Cut! cut!" answered them; and the calm voice of Skshetuski, repeating faster and faster the command, "Fire!"
The dawn was beginning to shine with pale light on the struggle. From the land side was to be seen a crowd of Cossacks and Tartars, some with their muskets held ready to aim, others stooping in the rear and drawing their bowstrings; from the side of the water two boats smoking and flashing with the continual discharges of musketry. Between them lay bodies stretched quietly on the sand.
In one of these boats stood Pan Yan, taller than the others, haughty, calm, with the lieutenant's staff in his hand and with uncovered head,--for a Tartar arrow had swept away his cap. The sergeant approached him and whispered,--
"We cannot hold out; the crowd is too great!"
But the lieutenant's only thought was to seal his mission with his blood, to prevent the disgrace of his office, and to perish not without glory. Therefore, when the Cossacks made a sort of breastwork for themselves of the provision bags, from behind which they struck the enemy, he remained visible and exposed to attack.
"Good!" said he; "we will die to the last man."
"We will die, father!" cried the Cossacks.
"Fire!"
Again the boats smoked. From the interior of the island new crowds came, armed with pikes and scythes. The assailants separated into two parties. One party kept up the fire; the other, composed of more than two hundred Cossacks and Tartars, only waited the proper moment for a hand-to-hand encounter. At the same time from the reeds of the island came out four boats, which were to attack the lieutenant from the rear and from both sides.
It was clear daylight now. The smoke stretched out in long streaks in the quiet air, and covered the scene of conflict.
The lieutenant commanded his twenty Cossacks to turn to the attacking boats, which, pushed with oars, moved on swiftly as birds over the quiet water of the river. The fire directed against the Tartars and Cossacks approaching from the interior of the island, was notably weakened on that account. They seemed, too, to expect this.
The sergeant approached the lieutenant again.
"The Tartars are taking their daggers between their teeth; they will rush on us this minute."
In fact, almost three hundred of the horde, with sabres in hand and knives in their teeth, prepared for the attack. They were accompanied by some tens of Zaporojians armed with scythes.
The attack was to begin from every direction, for the assailing boats were within gunshot; their sides were already covered with smoke.
Bullets began to fall like hail on the lieutenant's men. Both boats were filled with groans. In a few moments half of the Cossacks were down; the remainder still defended themselves desperately. Their faces were black, their hands wearied, their sight dim, their eyes full of blood; their gun-barrels began to burn their hands. Most of them were wounded.
At that moment a terrible cry and howl rent the air. The Tartars rushed to the attack.
The smoke, pushed by the movement of the mass of bodies, separated suddenly and left exposed to the eye the two boats of the lieutenant covered with a dark crowd of Tartars, like two carcasses of horses torn by a pack of wolves. Some Cossacks resisted yet; and at the mast stood Pan Yan, with bleeding face and an arrow sunk to the shaft in his left shoulder, but defending himself furiously. His form was like that of a giant in the crowd surrounding him. His sabre glittered like lightning; groans and howls responded to his blows. The sergeant, with another Cossack, guarded him on both sides; and the crowd swayed back at times in terror before those three, but, urged from behind, pushed on, and died under the blows of the sabre.
"Take them alive to the ataman!" was called out in the crowd. "Surrender!"
But Skshetuski was surrendering only to God; for he grew pale in a moment, tottered, and fell to the bottom of the boat.
"Farewell, father!" cried the sergeant, in despair.
But in a moment he fell also. The moving mass of assailants covered the boats completely.
CHAPTER XI.
At the house of the inspector of weights and measures, in the outskirts of Hassan Pasha, at the Saitch, sat two Zaporojians at a table, fortifying themselves with spirits distilled from millet, which they dipped unceasingly from a wooden tub that stood in the middle of the table. One of them, already old and quite decrepit, was Philip Zakhar. He was the inspector. The other, Anton Tatarchuk, ataman of the Chigirin kuren, was a man about forty years old, tall, with a wild expression of face and oblique Tartar eyes. Both spoke in a low voice, as if fearing that some one might overhear them.
"But it is to-day?" asked the inspector.
"Yes, almost immediately," answered Tatarchuk. "They are waiting for the koshevoi and Tugai Bey, who went with Hmelnitski himself to Bazaluk, where the horde is quartered. The Brotherhood is already assembled on the square, and the kuren atamans will meet in council before evening. Before night all will be known."
"It may have an evil end," muttered old Philip Zakhar.
"Listen, inspector! But did you see that there was a letter to me also?"
"Of course I did, for I carried the letters myself to the koshevoi, and I know how to read. Three letters were found on the Pole,--one to the koshevoi himself, one to you, the third to young Barabash. Every one in the Saitch knows of this already."
"And who wrote? Don't you know?"
"The prince wrote to the koshevoi, for his seal was on the letter; who wrote to you is unknown."
"God guard us!"
"If they don't call you a friend of the Poles openly, nothing will come of it."
"God guard us!" repeated Tatarchuk.
"It is evident that you have something on your mind."
"Pshaw! I have nothing on my mind."
"The koshevoi, too, may destroy all the letters, for his own head is concerned. There was a letter to him as well as to you."
"He may."
"But if you have done anything, then--" here the old inspector lowered his voice still more--"go away!"
"But how and where?" asked Tatarchuk, uneasily. "The koshevoi has placed guards on all the islands, so that no one may escape to the Poles and let them know what is going on. The Tartars are on guard at Bazaluk. A fish couldn't squeeze through, and a bird couldn't fly over."
"Then hide in the Saitch, wherever you can."
"They will find me,--unless you hide me among the barrels in the bazaar? You are my relative."
"I wouldn't hide my own brother. If you are afraid of death, then drink; you won't feel it when you are drunk."
"Maybe there is nothing in the letters."
"Maybe."
"Here is misfortune, misfortune!" said Tatarchuk. "I don't feel that I have done anything. I am a good fellow, an enemy to the Poles. But though there is nothing in the letter, the devil knows what the Pole may say at the council. He may ruin me."
"He is a severe man; he won't say anything."
"Have you seen him to-day?"
"Yes; I rubbed his wounds with tar, I poured spirits and ashes into his throat. He will be all right. He is an angry fellow! They say that at Hortitsa he slaughtered the Tartars like swine, before they captured him. Set your mind at rest about the Pole."
The