With Fire and Sword by Henryk Sienkiewicz — Read

Next morning early the commissioners left Novoselki, and with them Skshetuski; but that was a tearful journey, in which at every stopping-place, in every village, they were threatened with death, and met with contempt, which was worse than death -- worse specially in this, that the commissioners bore in their own persons the dignity and majesty of the Commonwealth. Pan Kisel grew ill, so that at every lodging-place he was borne from the sleigh to the house. The chamberlain of Lvoff wept over his own disgrace and that of the country. Captain Bryshovski fell ill also from sleeplessness and toil. Pan Yan therefore took his place, and led on farther that hapless suite amidst the pressure of crowds, insults, threats, skirmishes, and battles.

At Bélgorod it seemed to the commissioners again that their last hour had come. The crowd had beaten the sick Bryshovski, were killing Pan Gnyazdovski; and only the arrival of the metropolitan for an interview with the voevoda put a stop to the intended slaughter. They did not wish to admit the commissioners into Kiev at all. Prince Chetvertinski returned, February 11, from Hmelnitski without an answer. The commissioners did not know what further to do or where to go. Their return was prevented by immense parties waiting only for the breaking of negotiations to kill the envoys. The mob became more and more insolent; the bridles of the dragoons' horses were seized, and the road stopped; stones, pieces of ice, and frozen lumps of snow were thrown into the sleigh of the voevoda. At Gvozdova, Skshetuski and Donyéts had to fight a bloody battle in which they dispersed several hundred of the mob. The ensign of Novgrodek and Pan Smyarovski went with a new argument to persuade Hmelnitski to come to meet the commissioners at Kiev, but the voevoda had little hope that they would live to reach him. Meanwhile the commissioners in Khvastovo were forced to look with folded arms on the crowds killing prisoners of both sexes and of every age. Some were drowned through holes in the ice, some were drenched with water poured over them in the frost, others stabbed with forks or whittled to death with knives. Eighteen of such days passed before at last the answer came from Hmelnitski that he would not go to Kiev, but was waiting in Pereyasláv for the voevoda and the commissioners.