Page:Taras Bulba. A Tale of the Cossacks. 1916.djvu/108

102 and shouts of the workers rose over all the countryside; the bank, alive with men, shook and swayed about.

About this time a large ferry-boat began to approach the shore. The mass of men standing in it began to wave their arms from a long distance away. They were kazáks in torn, ragged svitkas. Their disordered garments (many had nothing but their shirt and a short pipe in their mouth) showed that they had escaped from some disaster, or had caroused to such an extent that they had drunk up all they had had on their bodies. A very short, broad-shouldered kazák of about fifty stepped out from their midst, and stood in front. He shouted and waved his hand more vigorously than any of the others; but his words could not be heard for the shouts and hammering of the workmen.

"Whence come you?" asked the Koshevói, when the boat had touched shore. All the workers paused in their labours, and, with axes and chisels uplifted, looked on expectantly.

"From a misfortune!" shouted the kazák.

"From what?"

"Permit me, noble Zaporozhtzi, to address you."

"Speak!"

"Or would you prefer to assemble the Council?"