Page:Taras Bulba. A Tale of the Cossacks. 1916.djvu/111

Rh that there were also dogs among our men who have already accepted their Faith."

"But your Hetman and your colonels,—what did they do?"

"God preserve any one from such deeds as our colonels performed!"

"How so?"

"This way: Our Hetman, roasted in a brazen ox, now lies in Warsaw; and the heads and hands of our colonels are being carried round to all the Fairs, as a spectacle for the people. That's what our colonels did."

The whole throng became violently agitated. At first silence reigned all along the shore, like that which precedes a fierce tempest; and then, suddenly, voices were raised, and all the shore broke into utterance:

"What! Jews hold the Christian churches on lease! Roman-Catholic priests have harnessed and beaten Orthodox Christians! What! Such torture has been permitted on Russian soil by accursed unbelievers! And they have done such things to the colonels and the Hetman? Nay, this shall not be, it shall not be!" Words of this sort flew from all quarters. The Zaporozhtzi were in an uproar, and felt their power. This was not the excitement of a giddy-headed folk. All who were