recompense for injustice and injuries. He knew the Com-
monwealth intimately, -- its patience, inexhaustible as the
sea; its compassion, knowing neither bounds nor measure,
which flowed not merely from weakness, for pardon was
offered Nalivaika when he was surrounded and lost. But
after the victory at Joltiya Vodi, after the destruction of
the hetmans, after the kindling of civil war in all the
southern provinces, affairs had gone too far. Events had
surpassed all expectations, and now the struggle must be
for life and death. To whose side would victory incline?
Hmelnitski inquired of soothsayers, took counsel of the
stars, and strained his eyes into the future, but saw noth-
ing ahead save darkness. At times, therefore, an awful
unquiet raised the hairs on his head, and in his breast
despair raged like a whirlwind. What will be? -- what
will be? For Hmelnitski, observing more closely than
others, understood at once, better than many, that the
Commonwealth knew not how to use its own forces, --
was unconscious of them, -- but had tremendous power. If
the right man should grasp that power in his hand, who
could stand against him? And who could guess whether
terrible danger, the nearness of the precipice and destruc-
tion, might not put an end to broils, internal dissensions,
private grievances, rivalries of magnates, wrangling, the
babbling of the Diets, the license of the nobility, and the
weakness of the king? Then a half-million of escutch-
eoned warriors alone could move to the field, and crush
Hmelnitski, even if he were aided not only by the Khan
of the Crimea, but by the Sultan of Turkey himself.
Of this slumbering power of the Commonwealth the late
King Vladislav was aware, as well as Hmelnitski; and there-
fore he labored all his life to initiate a mortal struggle with
the greatest potentate on earth, for only in this way could
that power be called into life. In accordance with this
conviction, the king did not hesitate to throw sparks on
the Cossack powder. Were the Cossacks really destined
to cause that inundation, in order to be overwhelmed in
it at last?

Hmelnitski understood, too, that in spite of all the weak-
ness of the Commonwealth its resistance was tremendous.
Against this Commonwealth, so disorderly, ill-united, in-
subordinate, the Turkish waves, the most terrible of all,
were broken as against a cliff. Thus it was at Khotim,
which he saw almost with his own eyes. That Common-