Page:Henryk Sienkiewicz - Potop - The Deluge (1898 translation by Jeremiah Curtin) - Vol 2.djvu/349

Rh they were placed in the trenches began to work against the fortress. The king did not expect, it is true, to make a breach in the walls; he merely wished to instil into Zamoyski the conviction that he had determined to storm furiously and mercilessly. He wished to bring terror on them; but that was bringing terror on Poles. Zamoyski paid no attention to it for a moment, and often while on the walls he said, in time of the heaviest cannonading, —

"Why do they waste powder?"

Volodyovski and the others offered to make a sortie, but Zamoyski would not permit it; he did not wish to waste blood. He knew besides that it would be necessary to deliver open battle; for such a careful warrior as the king and such a trained army would not let themselves be surprised. Zagloba, seeing this fixed determination, insisted all the more, and guaranteed that he would lead the sortie.

"You are too bloodthirsty!" answered Zamoyski. "It is pleasant for us and unpleasant for the Swedes; why should we go to them? You might fall, and I need you as a councillor; for it was by your wit that I confounded Forgell so by mentioning the Netherlands."

Zagloba answered that he could not restrain himself within the walls, he wanted so much to get at the Swedes; but he was forced to obey. In default of other occupation he spent his time on the walls among the soldiers, dealing out to them precautions and counsel with importance, which all heard with no little respect, holding him a greatly experienced warrior, one of the foremost in the Commonwealth; and he was rejoiced in soul, looking at the defence and the spirit of the knighthood.

"Pan Michael," said he to Volodyovski, "there is another spirit in the Commonwealth and in the nobles. No one thinks now of treason or surrender; and every one out of good-will for the Commonwealth and the king is ready to give his life sooner than yield a step to the enemy. You remember how a year ago from every side was heard, 'This one has betrayed, that one has betrayed, a third has accepted protection;' and now the Swedes need protection more than we. If the Devil does not protect them, he will soon take them. We have our stomachs so full here that drummers might beat on them, but their entrails are twisted into whips from hunger."