But immediately after them moved squadrons of light-horse. One might have thought them real centaurs to such a degree had each man and horse become one single entity. These were undegenerate sons of those horsemen who in their day had trampled all Germany, cleaving apart with their sabres and with horse hoofs whole regiments, nay, entire armies of Luther's adherents. The heaviest foreign cavalry, if only equal in number could not oppose them, and the lightest could not escape from them by fleeing. The king himself had said of those men when at Hotsim: "If they are led to the enemy they will cut down all in front of them, as a mower cuts grass at his labor." And though at this moment they advanced past the carriages slowly, each person, even one quite unknowing in warfare, divined very quickly that at the right moment nothing save a hurricane could surpass them in swiftness, power to whirl, strike down, and overthrow. Crooked trumpets and drums went on thundering in front of them, while they marched forward, squadron after squadron, with drawn sabres which seemed flaming swords in the quivering sunlight. When they had passed the court carriages they advanced like a wave starting suddenly, going first at a trot which turned soon to a gallop, and, when they had outlined a great giant circle, they passed again, and this time they rushed like a tempest and near the queen's carriage; but while they were doing this they shouted, "Slay! Kill!" and in extended right hands held their sabres pointed forward as if in attacking, on horses whose nostrils were distended to the utmost, with waving manes, as if wild from the impetus of their onrush. And they passed thus a second time, and then at the third turn they, without breaking ranks, stood still on a sudden. They did this so accurately, so evenly, and with such agreement that foreigners, of whom at that court there were many, and especially those who saw then for the first time Polish cavalry in action, gazed at one another with amazement, as if each man were questioning his own eyesight. When they had vanished the field glittered with dragoons everywhere and bloomed like a blossom. Some of those regiments had appeared under Pan Yablonovski, some had been assembled by magnates, and one by the king, from his own private fortune; this was commanded by Pan de Maligny, Her Majesty's brother. In the dragoons served common folk for the greater part, but men trained to riding from childhood, experienced in fighting of various sorts, stubborn under fire, less terrible at close quarters than nobles, but disciplined and most enduring of military labor.