Page:Taras Bulba. A Tale of the Cossacks. 1916.djvu/112

106 thus agitated were strong, firm characters, which were not easily heated, but once rendered red-hot preserved the inward heat long and obstinately. "Hang all Jews!" rang through the crowd. "They shall not make petticoats for their Jewesses from priests' vestments! They shall not place their tokens on the holy paskha! Drown them all, the heathens, in the Dnyeper!" These words, uttered by some one in the throng, flashed like lightning through all minds, and the crowd flung themselves upon the suburb with the intention of cutting the throats of all the Jews.

The poor sons of Israel, losing all presence of mind, and not being courageous, in any case, hid themselves in empty brandy-casks, in ovens, and even crawled under the skirts of their Jewesses; but the kazáks routed them out, wherever they were.

"Most illustrious lords!" shrieked one Jew, tall and thin as a stick, thrusting his sorry visage, distorted with terror, from among a group of his comrades, "most illustrious lords! suffer us to say a word, only one word. We will reveal to you what you never yet have heard, a thing more important than I can say,—very important!"

"Well, say it!" said Bulba, who always liked to hear what an accused man had to say.

"Illustrious lords!" exclaimed the Jew, "such