Page:Henryk Sienkiewicz - Potop - The Deluge (1898 translation by Jeremiah Curtin) - Vol 1.djvu/330

300 "The devil tempted me when I persuaded Pan Yan and his cousin to go to Radzivill!" said Zagloba, in despair.

But Pan Michael did not lose hope yet, especially since the nobles, and even the peasants, brought him warning of the hetman's movements; for all hearts were turning from Radzivill. Pan Michael twisted out therefore as he knew how, — and he knew how famously, for almost from childhood he had inured himself to war with Tartars and Cossacks. He had been made renowned in the army of Yeremi by descents on Tartar chambuls, by scouting expeditions, unexpected attacks, lightning escapes, in which he surpassed other officers.

At present hemmed in between Upita and Rogova on one side and Nyevyaja on the other, he doubled around on the space of a few miles, avoiding battle continually, worrying the Radzivill squadrons, and even plucking them a little as a wolf hunted by dogs slips by often near the hunters, and when the dogs press him too closely, turns and shows his white gleaming teeth.

But when Kmita's cavalry came up, the hetman closed the narrowest gaps with them, and went himself to see that the two ends of the snare came together.

That was at Nyevyaja.

The regiments of Myeleshko and Ganhoff with two squadrons of cavalry, under the lead of the prince himself, formed as it were a bow, the string of which was the river. Volodyovski with his squadron was in the centre of the bow. He had in front of him, it is true, one ford which led through a swampy stream, but just on the other side of the ford were two Scottish regiments and two hundred of Radzivill's Cossacks, with six fieldpieces, turned in such manner that even one man could not have reached the other side under the fire of them.

Now the bow began to contract. The middle of it was led by the hetman himself.

Happily for Volodyovski, night and a storm with pouring rain stopped the advance; but for the enclosed men there remained not more than a square half-mile of meadow, grown over with willows, in the middle of the half-ring of Radzivill's army, and the river guarded on the other side by the Scots.

Next morning when the early dawn was just whitening the tops of the willows, the regiments moved forward to the river and were struck dumb with amazement.