ish fire the Russian
soldiers and cannon, advancing through mud and marsh, sank at every
step. For three hours the Poles kept the enemy at bay, standing steadily
against his terrific fire with artillery that was no match for his. The
Polish staff were covered with branches that the Russian balls sent
crashing from the trees. Kosciuszko himself fired the cannon with an
accuracy of aim under which the Russians wavered. It appeared as though
they were about to retreat. But the enemy's superiority of numbers, the
strength of his artillery, began to tell, and his heavy fire sowed death
among the Polish ranks. A shell burst between Kosciuszko, his
aide-de-camp, Fiszer, and Niemcewicz, but left them unharmed. What
Niemcewicz, who lived through it, describes as a hailstorm of bullets,
grapeshot and shells, poured down upon the Polish lines. How any came
out alive to tell the tale was to him a marvel. The dead lay in heaps.
Not a Pole stirred from his post under this rain of fire. Each fell
where he stood. Every artillery horse was by now killed or mutilated.
Then at that moment--it was past midday--the Polish cannon were silent:
the ammunition had run out. Riding madly through the Polish ranks,
Kosciuszko shouted to his soldiers to fight on, to keep up heart,
Poninski with fresh supplies was coming up. He did not come, and the
rumour of treachery, never, however, proved, gathered about a name that
was already of ill repute to a Polish ear. Galled by standing motionless
without ammunition, a Polish battalion rashly charged, and the Russians
broke through the Polish line. Niemcewicz, rushing up to repulse them at
the head of a Lithuanian squadron, was wounded, captured by the
Russians, and his men dispersed. Another faithful friend of Kosciuszko,
Kopec, struggling to cut a way through for his general, and thrice
wounded, was in his turn taken prisoner. The little Polish army was now
encircled on all sides by the Russians, attacking in their whole
strength. Then ensued a fearful bayonet charge in which the Poles were
mowed down like corn before the sickles, each soldier falling at his
post, yielding not to the enemy of their country, but only to death. The
battalion of Dzialynski--he who had been among the most ardent
propagators of the Rising in its beginning--died to the last man. One
who passed over the battlefield before the close of day shuddered at the
sight of those serried rows of the dead, testifying by the order in
which