The year 1647 was that wonderful year in which manifold signs in the heavens and on the earth announced misfortunes of some kind and unusual events. Contemporary chroniclers relate that beginning with...

Reaching Chigirin next morning, Pan Skshetuski stopped at the house of Prince Yeremi in the town, where he was to spend some time in giving rest to his men and horses after their long journey from the...

A few days later the lieutenant with his escort pressed forward briskly in the direction of Lubni. After the passage of the Dnieper, they travelled by a broad steppe road which united Chigirin with Lu...

The Kurtsevichi Bulygi were of an ancient princely stock which used the escutcheon of Kurts, claimed to be from Koryat, but was really from Rurik. Of the two main lines, one lived in Lithuania, the ot...

When he arrived at Lubni, Pan Yan did not find the prince, who had gone to a christening at the house of an old attendant of his, Pan Sufchinski, at Senchy, taking with him the princess, two young pri...

Over the whole Ukraine and beyond the Dnieper strange sounds began to spread like the heralds of a coming tempest; certain wonderful tidings flew from village to village, from farmhouse to farmhouse⁠—...

It was now the second half of March; the grass was growing luxuriantly, the field-roller was blooming, the steppe was stirring with life. In the morning the lieutenant, travelling at the head of his m...

In Chigirin, Skshetuski found the old man Zatsvilikhovski in great excitement and fever. He looked impatiently at the prince’s envoy, for tidings more and more terrible kept coming from the Saitch. Th...

Next morning Pan Yan woke up fresh, in good health, and cheerful. The weather was wonderful. The widely overflowed waters were wrinkled into small ripples by the warm, light breeze. The banks were in ...

The swift boats bearing the knight and his fortunes shot down the current with the speed of swallows. By reason of high water the Cataracts presented no great danger. They passed Surski and Lokhanny; ...

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 ...

Hmelnitski and Skshetuski went to spend the night at the house of the koshevoi, and with them Tugai Bey, for whom it was too late to return to Bazaluk. The wild bey treated the lieutenant as a captive...

Next morning early the Cossacks marched out of the Saitch, foot and horse. Though blood had not yet stained the steppes, the war had begun. Regiment followed regiment; just as if locusts, warmed by th...

The thunder of the guns of Kudák was heard also by the forces descending in boats under the command of old Barabash and Krechovski. These forces were composed of six thousand registered Cossacks, and ...

Skshetuski, hearing the battle, waited with trembling for the conclusion of it. He thought at first that Hmelnitski was meeting all the forces of the hetmans. But toward evening old Zakhar led him out...

Some days passed by. It appeared to men as if the vault of heaven had suddenly dropped on the Commonwealth. Jóltiya Vodi; Korsún; the destruction of the armies of the crown, ever victorious hitherto i...

To explain what had taken place in Rozlogi, we must return to that night when Pan Yan sent Jendzian from Kudák with a letter to the old princess. The letter contained an earnest request to take Helena...

The Kurtsevichi were not sleeping yet. They were supping in that anteroom, filled with weapons, which extended the whole width of the house, from the garden to the square on the other side. At the sig...

Two persons rode quietly and slowly through the woody ravine which skirted the dwelling at Rozlogi. The night had become very dark, for the moon had gone down long before, and besides clouds covered t...

Helena was wakened by the barking of dogs. Opening her eyes, she saw in the distance before her a great shady oak, an enclosure, and a well-sweep. She roused her companion at once: “Oh, wake up!” Zagl...

Next morning after the flight of Zagloba, the Cossacks found Bogun half suffocated in the coat in which Zagloba had wrapped him; but since his wounds were not serious he returned soon to consciousness...

Prince Vishnyevetski knew of the defeat at Korsún before Skshetuski had been found sitting on the ruins of Rozlogi, since Polyanovski, one of his hussar officers, had brought news of it to Segotin. Pr...

Late in the evening the army arrived in Rozlogi by moonlight. There they found Pan Yan sitting on his Calvary. The knight, as is known, had lost his senses altogether from pain and torment; and when t...

Pan Yan, who had galloped in advance of the regiments to the castle to inquire for the princess and Zagloba, did not find them. They had neither been seen nor heard of, though there was news of the at...

After the nine days’ march of which Mashkevich was the Xenophon, and the three days’ passage of the Desna, the army reached Chernigoff at last. Skshetuski entered first of all with the Wallachians. Th...

Hmelnitski remained awhile at Korsún, and then pushed on to Bélaya Tserkoff, where he established his capital. The horde was disposed in camp on the other side of the river, sending out parties throug...

Krívonos marched then from Bélaya Tserkoff through Skvira and Pogrébische to Makhnovka. Wherever he passed, traces of human habitation vanished. Whoever did not join him perished under the knife. Grai...

A day later, when the army halted in Ryltsoff, the prince summoned Pan Yan and said⁠— “Our forces are weak and worn out, but Krívonos has sixty thousand, and his army is increasing every day, for the ...

It is easy to understand how the prince received the statement which Skshetuski made of the refusal of Osinski and Koritski. Everything had so combined that it needed such a great soul as that iron pr...

The army passed Konstantinoff and halted at Rosolovtsi; for the prince calculated that when Koritski and Osinski would receive news of the taking of Polónnoe, they would retreat to Rosolovtsi, and if ...

When the warriors drew near each other, they reined in their horses and opened in mutual abuse. “Come on! come on! We will feed the dogs with your carrion right away!” cried the prince’s soldiers. “Yo...

But it was the retreat of a lion needing room for a spring. The prince purposely allowed Krívonos to cross so as to inflict on him the greater defeat. In the very beginning of the battle he had the ca...

Pan Yan rode at the head of the prince’s squadrons, but to Zbaraj instead of Tarnopol, for a new order had come to march to the latter place; and on the road he told his faithful attendant his own adv...

On a certain calm night a band of horsemen, about twenty in number, moved along the right bank of the Valadinka in the direction of the Dniester. They went very slowly, the horses almost dragging one ...

The sun was high when the princess opened her eyes from sleep on the following day. Her glance rested first on the ceiling, and remained there long; then it took in the whole room. In her breast retur...

Two days later in the morning Horpyna sat with Bogun under the willow near the mill-wheel, and looked at the water foaming on it. “You will be careful of her, you will guard her, you will not let your...

“The Lord has wrought an evident miracle in her favor already,” said Zagloba to Volodyovski and Podbipienta, while sitting in Skshetuski’s quarters⁠—“an evident miracle, I say, in permitting me to wre...

Skshetuski so marched with his detachment that he rested during the day in forests and ravines, throwing out pickets carefully, and pushed forward only in the night. Whenever he approached a village h...

When Zagloba found himself alone at the head of his party, he felt uncomfortable somehow and terribly alarmed, and would have given much to have at his side Skshetuski, Volodyovski, or Pan Longin, who...

Zagloba lay bound hand and foot to his own sabre, which was passed across behind his knees, in that same room in which the wedding was celebrated. The terrible chief sat at some distance on a bench, a...

Bogun, though a brave, clear-sighted leader, had no luck in this expedition against the supposed division of Prince Yeremi. He was merely confirmed in the belief that the prince had really moved his w...

The first wrecks from Pilavtsi reached Lvoff at daybreak, September 26; and with the opening of the gates the news spread like lightning through the city, rousing incredulity in some, panic in others,...

A week later, on the morning of the 6th of October, news as unexpected as terrible burst upon Lvoff. Prince Yeremi, with the greater part of the army, had left the city secretly and had gone it was un...

A number of weeks passed. The nobles assembled in greater and greater numbers for the election. The population of the city increased tenfold; for with the crowds of nobles poured in thousands of merch...

The sabres whistled; edge clashed against edge. The place of conflict was shifted at once; for Bogun pressed on with such fury that Volodyovski sprang back a number of steps, and the seconds had to re...

Prince Yeremi heard of the slaying of Bogun with notable indifference, especially when he learned that there were men outside his regiments who were ready at any moment to testify that Volodyovski had...

At last “Te Deum laudamus” was heard in the cathedral of Warsaw, and the king was enthroned; cannon thundered, bells were tolled, and confidence began to enter all hearts. The interregnum had passed⁠—...

So Pan Longin went to Krakow, his heart pierced with an arrow, and the cruel Zagloba with Volodyovski to Zamost, where they remained only one day; for the commandant informed them that he had received...

The commissioners sent by the Commonwealth to negotiate with Hmelnitski forced their way through the greatest difficulties to Novoselki, and there halted, waiting an answer from the victorious hetman,...

Next morning early the commissioners left Novoselki, and with them Skshetuski; but that was a tearful journey, in which at every stopping-place, in every village, they were threatened with death, and ...

On the following day the commissioners had long consultations among themselves, whether to deliver the gifts of the king to Hmelnitski immediately or to wait till he should show greater obedience and ...

If Zagloba was bored at Zbaraj, no less bored was Volodyovski, who was longing especially for war and its adventures. They went out, it is true, from time to time with the squadron in pursuit of plund...

Old Zakhar went back to Kiev after a few days’ rest, and then came tidings that the commissioners had no great hopes of peace, or in fact almost despaired of it. They were able to obtain merely an arm...

“Picture to yourself,” said Volodyovski to Pan Longin a few days later, “that that man has changed in one hour as if he had grown ten years older. So joyous was he, so talkative, so full of tricks, th...

The prince had really set out for Zamost a few days before for the purpose of making new levies of troops, and it was not expected that he would return soon. Volodyovski, Zagloba, and Jendzian therefo...

The horses were given barely time to rest, and the return was begun with such speed that when the moon had risen on the steppe the party was already in the neighborhood of Studenka, beyond the Valadin...

Volodyovski and Zagloba found all the forces of the Crown assembled at Zbaraj, and waiting for the enemy. The cupbearer of the Crown, Ostrorog, who had come from Konstantinoff, was there, and Lantskor...

Next morning, before the sun had scattered its golden rays over the sky, a new protecting rampart encircled the Polish camp. The old ramparts included too much space. Defence and the giving of mutual ...

The Poles had to raise new ramparts to render the earthworks of the Cossacks useless and make defence easier for their own reduced forces. They dug therefore all night after the storm. On this account...

Many a simple knight covered himself with undying glory on that memorable rampart of Zbaraj; but the lyre will celebrate Pan Longin Podbipienta among the first, since the greatness of his gifts could ...

Zagloba and Volodyovski were standing on the rampart next morning among the soldiers, looking carefully toward the tabor, from the side of which masses of peasants were approaching. Pan Yan was in cou...

In the drawing-room of the Court at Toporoff sat three magnates one evening in secret consultation. A number of bright lights were burning on a table covered with maps of the surrounding country; near...

Skshetuski slept a number of days, and when he woke he had a violent fever, and suffered long. He talked of Zbaraj, of the prince, of the starosta of Krasnovstav; he talked with Pan Michael, with Zagl...

But this tragedy of history was finished neither at Zborovo nor Zbaraj, and not even the first act of it. Two years later all Cossackdom rushed forth to do battle with the Commonwealth. Hmelnitski ros...

Since the Polish alphabet has many peculiar phonetic combinations which are difficult to one who does not know the language, it was decided to transliterate the names of persons and places in which su...

Since the Polish alphabet has many peculiar phonetic combinations which are difficult to one who does not know the language, it was decided to transliterate the names of persons and places in which su...

All Polish words, with few exceptions, are accented on the syllable next the last, the penult. The exceptions are foreign names, some compounds, some words with enclitics. Polish names of men and plac...

A stringed instrument used in southern Russia, resembling the guitar. The chief of a town or city under Polish rule, as well as the district connected with it. The castellan was always a senator, and ...

The author uses Skshetuski, the family name of his hero, oftener than Yan, his Christian name, prefixing Pan = Mr. in both cases. I have taken the liberty of using Yan oftener than Skshetuski because ...