That evening the Swedes lay down to sleep without putting food into their mouths, and without hope that they would have anything to strengthen themselves with on the morrow. They were not able to sleep from the torment of hunger. Before the second cock-crow the suffering soldiers began to slip out of the camp singly and in crowds to plunder villages adjoining Yaroslav. They went like night-thieves to Radzymno, to Kanchuya, to Tychyno, where they hoped to find food of some kind. Their confidence was increased by the fact that Charnyetski was on the other side of the river; but even had he been able to cross, they preferred death to hunger. There was evidently a great relaxation in the camp, for despite the strictest orders of the king about fifteen hundred men went out in this way. They fell to ravaging the neighborhood, burning, plundering, killing; but scarcely a man of them was to return. Charnyetski was on the other side of the San, it is true, but on the left bank were various “parties” of nobles and peasants; of these the strongest, that of Stjalkovski, formed of daring nobles of the mountains, had come that very night to Prohnik, as if led by the evil fate of the Swedes. When he saw the fire and heard the shots, Stjalkovski went straight to the uproar and fell upon the plunderers. They defended themselves fiercely behind fences; but Stjalkovski broke them up, cut them to pieces, spared no man. In other villages other parties did work of the same kind. Fugitives were followed to the very camp, and the pursuers spread alarm and confusion, shouting in Tartar, in Wallachian, in Hungarian, and in Polish; so that the Swedes thought that some powerful auxiliary of the Poles was attacking them, maybe the Khan with the whole horde. Confusion began, and—a thing without example hitherto—panic, which the officers put down with the greatest effort. The king, who remained on horseback till daylight, saw what was taking place; he understood what might come of that, and called a council of war at once in the morning. That gloomy council did not last long, for there were not two roads to choose from. Courage had fallen in the army, the soldiers had nothing to eat, the enemy had grown in power. The Swedish Alexander, who had promised the whole world to pursue the Polish Darius even to the steppes of the Tartars, was forced to think no longer of pursuit, but of his own safety. “We can return by the San to Sandomir, thence by the Vistula to Warsaw and to Prussia,” said Wittemberg; “in that way we shall escape destruction.” Douglas seized his own head: “So many victories, so many toils, such a great country conquered, and we must return.” To which Wittemberg said: “Has your worthiness any advice?” “I have not,” answered Douglas. The king, who had said nothing hitherto, rose, as a sign that the session was ended, and said, “I command the retreat!” Not a word further was heard from his mouth that day.