Page:Henryk Sienkiewicz - Potop - The Deluge (1898 translation by Jeremiah Curtin) - Vol 1.djvu/480

450 So saying, he seized Pan Andrei by the shoulder; but Pan Andrei seized him. First, however, the two young Kyemliches, Kosma and Damian, had risen from the bench, almost touching the ceiling with their bushy heads, and Kosma asked, —

"Shall we pound, father?" "Pound!" answered old Kyemlich, unsheathing his sabre. The doors burst open, and Yuzva's soldiers rushed in; but behind them, almost on their necks, came Kyemlich's men.

Yuzva caught Pan Andrei by the shoulder, and in his right hand held a naked rapier, making a whirlwind and lightning with it around himself. But Pan Andrei, though he had not the gigantic strength of his enemy, seized Butrym's throat as if in a vice. Yuzva's eyes were coming out; he tried to stun Kmita with the hilt of his rapier, but did not succeed, for Kmita thundered first on his forehead with the hilt of his sabre. Yuzva's fingers, holding the shoulder of his opponent, opened at once; he tottered and bent backward under the blow. To make room for a second blow, Kmita pushed him again, and slashed him with full sweep on the face with his sabre. Yuzva fell on his back like an oak-tree, striking the floor with his skull.

"Strike!" cried Kmita, in whom was roused, in one moment, the old fighting spirit.

But he had no need to urge, for it was boiling in the room, as in a pot. The two young Kyemliches slashed with their sabres, and at times butted with their heads, like a pair of bullocks, putting down a man with each blow; after them advanced their old father, bending every moment to the floor, half closing his eyes, and thrusting quickly the point of his weapon under the arms of his sons.

But Soroka, accustomed to fighting in inns and close quarters, spread the greatest destruction. He pressed his opponents so sorely that they could not reach him with a blade; and when he had discharged his pistols in the crowd, he smashed heads with the" butts of the pistols, crushing noses, knocking out teeth and eyes. Kyemlich's servants and Kmita's two soldiers aided their masters.

The fight moved from the table to the upper end of the room. The Lauda men defended themselves with rage; but from the moment that Kmita, having finished Yuzva, sprang