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Lewenhaupt fought bravely for three days, and succeeded in cutting his way through the enemy, with about four thousand of his men, to where Charles awaited him near the river Desna; but upwards of eight thousand Swedes fell in these battles; Lewenhaupt's cannon and ammunition were abandoned; and the whole of his important convoy of provisions, on which Charles and his half-starved troops were relying, fell into the enemy's hands.
Mazeppa, when he heard this report, "raged like a whirlwind," hurried to Batourin to give the alarm, and then crossed the Desna and joined the Swedish army. It was too late. The popular sentiment, on which both he and Charles had reckoned to promote an insurrectionary movement, confused by the tergiversations and the ambiguous actions of the hetman, had quite gone astray and lost all consistency.
RAZIN. Why, e'en this pillar here bears Moscow's arms; Here terminates the empire of the Poles. DEMETRIUS. Is that the Dnieper, rolls its quiet stream Along these meadows? ODOWALSKY. That, sire, is the Desna; See, yonder rise the towers of Tschernizow! RAZIN. Yon gleam you see upon the far horizon Is from the roofs of Sewerisch Novogrod. DEMETRIUS. What a rich prospect! What fair meadow lands!
Charles grew so disconcerted that he is reported to have confessed to Gyllenkrook, his quartermaster-general, that he was all at sea, and no longer had any definite plan. On October 22d he reached Mokoshin on the Desna, on the borders of the Ukraine, where he had expected to meet Mazeppa. But the old leader broke his appointment.
Around stretched huge, slumbering, primeval forests, shadow-filled bogs, and wide green marshes. Wolves howled mournfully through the woods and the valleys. Carts were creaking; horses were neighing; men were shouting this wild race of the Ancient Russians was marching to collect tribute. Down a forest roadway they went, from the Oka to the rivers Sozh and Desna.
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