Page:Henryk Sienkiewicz - Potop - The Deluge (1898 translation by Jeremiah Curtin) - Vol 1.djvu/234

204 success were evident to all. Hitherto the Swedes had not met a real army once, or a real leader. Radzivill was the first warrior by profession with whom they had to measure strength, and who at the same time roused in the nobility absolute confidence in his military gifts, especially as his colonels gave assurance that they would conquer the Swedes in the open field.

"Their defeat is inevitable!" said Pan Stankyevich, an old and experienced soldier. "I remember former wars, and I know that they always defended themselves in castles, in fortified camps, and in trenches. They never dared to come to the open field, for they feared cavalry greatly, and when trusting in their numbers they did come out, they received a proper drilling. It was not victory that gave Great Poland into their hands, but treason and the imbecility of general militia."

"True," said Zagioba. "The Swedish people are weak, for their land is terribly barren, and they have no bread; they grind pine cones, and of that sort of flour make ash-cakes which smell of resin. Others go to the seashore and devour whatever the waves throw up, besides fighting about it as a tidbit. Terrible destitution! so there are no people more greedy for their neighbors' goods. Even the Tartars have horse-flesh in plenty, but these Swedes do not see meat once a year, and are pinched with hunger unless when a good haul of fish comes."

Here Zagloba turned to Stankyevich: "Have you ever made the acquaintance of the Swedes?"

"Under Prince Krishtof, the father of the present hetman."

"And I under Konyetspolski, the father. We gave Gustavus Adolphus many crushing defeats in Prussia, and took no small number of prisoners; there I became acquainted with them through and through, and learned all their methods. Our men wondered at them not a little, for you must know that the Swedes as a people always wading in water and having their greatest income from the sea, are divers exquisitissimi. What would you, gentlemen, say to what we made them do? We would throw one of the rascals into a hole in the ice, and he would swim out through another hole with a live herring in his mouth."

"In God's name, what do you tell us?"

"May I fall down a corpse on this spot if with my own eyes I have not seen this done at least a hundred times, as