chment. He spent the evening in the house
of Zakrzewski, for the last time among his dearest and most faithful
collaborators, Ignacy Potocki, Kollontaj, and others. The next morning
by dawn he was off with Niemcewicz. They galloped over the bridge at
Praga. A month later that bridge was to run red with the blood of Polish
women and children; its broken pillars were to ring with the agonizing
cries of helpless fugitives as they fled from Suvorov's soldiers only to
find death in the river below. The life of Poland depending on his
speed, for Fersen at the head of twenty thousand men was nearing both
Warsaw and Suvorov, Kosciuszko, with his companion, rode at hot haste.
They only paused to change horses, remounting the miserable steeds of
the peasants, sorry beasts with string for bridle and bit, and saddles
without girths; but none others were to be found in a land laid waste by
the Cossacks and by the marches of armed men. At four in the afternoon
Kosciuszko rode into Sierakowski's camp, where he at once held a council
of war. The army under his command moved on October 7th, The day was
fair, glowing with the lights of the Polish autumn. The soldiers were
gay of heart, and sang as they marched through villages ruined by the
Cossacks--to defeat. They halted at one of these villages where the
Russians had been before them. The staff spent the night in the house of
the squire. The furniture had been hacked to pieces by the Cossacks,
books, utensils, all destroyed. That evening a courier rode in to convey
to Kosciuszko the intelligence that Dombrowski had won a victory over
the Prussians at Bydgoszcz--rechristened by Prussia, Bromberg--and had
taken the town. It was Kosciuszko's last hour of joy. He published the
news through the camp, amidst the soldiers' acclamations, bidding them
equal Dombrowski's prowess with their own. With an old friend of his
Niemcewicz walked in the courtyard of the house where the staff was
quartered. A flock of ravens wheeled above them. "Do you remember your
Titus Livy?" asked Niemcewicz's companion. "Those ravens are on our
right. It is a bad sign." "It might be so for the Romans," replied the
poet, "but not for us. You will see that though it seems difficult we
shall smash the Muscovites." "I think so too," answered the other.[1] In
this spirit the Polish soldiers advanced to the fatal field of
Maciejowice. Tents they had none. Fires were lit, around which they
stood or sat, arms in hand.

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