The New-York Weekly Magazine, or Miscellaneous Repository: Forming an Interesting Collection of Original and Select Literary Productions in Prose and Verse
General
The New-York Weekly Magazine, or Miscellaneous Repository: Forming an Interesting Collection of Original and Select Literary Productions in Prose and Verse
American periodicals
The Turks having declared war against Russia, the Tartars of Budziac and
the Crimea made frequent incursions into Volhynia, where I then was.
Four of those robbers attacked us one afternoon, as we were leaving a
wood near Ostropol. I had imprudently neglected to load my pistols; but
I made use of my sabre with so much address and good luck, that in a
short time, two of them fell covered with wounds. Boleslas encountered
the third: the fourth attacked me with great fury; he gave me a slight
cut upon the leg, but received a terrible stroke in return, that
dismounted him from his horse, and felled him to the ground. Boleslas at
the same moment perceived himself disencumbered from his enemy, who, at
the noise made by his comrade’s fall, took to flight. He whom I had just
vanquished, then addressed me in very bad Polish, and said: “a brave man
like you ought to be generous. I beg my life of you; instead of putting
me to death, succour me, relieve me, bind up my wounds, and assist me to
arise.”
He demanded quarter with an air so noble, that I did not hesitate for a
moment. I accordingly descend from my horse, and Boleslas and myself
having helped him to arise, we dressed his wounds. “You behave well!”
says the Tartar to me; “you behave well!” As he spoke we beheld a cloud
of dust, and in a moment after more than three hundred Tartars rushed
upon us at full speed. “Be not afraid, dread nothing,” says he whom I
had spared; “I am chief of this troop.” Accordingly, by means of a sign,
he stops his followers, who were on the point of massacring us; and
speaking to them in their own language, which I was unable to
comprehend, they instantly open their ranks on purpose to permit us to
pass.
“Brave man,” exclaims their captain, addressing himself to me once more,
“had I not reason to say that you behaved well? You left me my life, and
I now save yours; it is sometimes right to spare an enemy, and even a
robber! Hear me, my friend: in attacking you, I followed my profession,
and you did your duty in conquering me. I pardon you, you have already
pardoned me; let us therefore embrace.”--He then adds: “The day is
wasting, and I would not advise you to travel in these cantons during
the present night. My people are about to repair each to his respective
post, and I cannot answer for their discretion. You perceive a castle on
a rising ground, towards the right: it belongs to a certain Pole of the
name of Dourlinski, for whom we have a high esteem, because he is very
rich. Go, demand an asylum from him; tell him that you have wounded
Titsikan, and that Titsikan pursues you. He is acquainted with my name:
I have already made him pass many an uneasy night. As to the rest, you
may rely on it, that while you remain with him, his castle shall be
sacred; but be careful not to come forth on any account before the end
of three days, and not to remain there longer than eight.---Adieu!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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