tnote 1: J. Niemcewicz, _Notes sur ma Captivite a
Saint-Petersbourg_.]

On the 8th of October rain poured, and the wearied soldiers rested. On
the 9th the army went forward. Again over that last march the strange
beauty of a Polish autumn shed a parting melancholy glory. The way led
through forests flaming with the red, gold, and amber with which the
fall of the year paints the woods of Poland. At four o'clock the forest
was left behind, and the army emerged near the village of Maciejowice.
Kosciuszko, taking Niemcewicz and a few lancers, pushed on to
reconnoitre the position. A scene of terrible splendour met the gaze of
the doomed leader. The Vistula stretched before him, reddening in the
sunset, and as far as the eye could reach lay on its shores the Russian
army, their weapons flashing to the sinking sun. The hum of multitudes
of men, the neighing of horses, the discordant clamours of a camp,
filled the air. Advancing, Kosciuszko with his little troop had a
skirmish with the Cossacks. The general and Niemcewicz were twice
surrounded, and narrowly escaped with their lives. Then with the evening
the Polish army came up, and hostilities ceased.

The village of Maciejowice stood in a hollow outside a wood among
marshes. The night quarters of the staff were in the manor-house
belonging to the Zamojski family. It, too, had been ravaged by Russian
soldiers, the family portraits in a great hall on the first floor
slashed by Cossack sabres, the contents of the library wantonly
destroyed. No foreboding seemed to have hung over the Polish officers as
they sat at supper. They were in high spirits, and peals of laughter
greeted the quaint scraps that Niemcewicz read out from a handful of old
Polish newspapers he had hit upon intact in a chest. Shortly after
supper Kosciuszko lay down for a few hours' sleep; at midnight he rose
and dictated to Niemcewicz his instructions for the day. Before sunrise
the Russians were moving to the attack, and Kosciuszko was on his horse.
Impelled by necessity, he gave orders to fire a village that lay in the
line of the Russian advance. The lamentations of the women and children
as they fled into the woods from the flames that were destroying their
all, the wild cries of frightened birds and beasts, the volumes of smoke
rising over ruined homes, combined to make up a scene of horror,
unforgettable by those who witnessed it, and that must have wrung a
heart such as Kosciuszko's. Under a steady Pol