Page:Taras Bulba. A Tale of the Cossacks. 1916.djvu/116

110 thoroughly, all of you," he said, "put your teams and your tar-boxes in order, test your weapons. Take not many garments with you: a shirt and a couple of pairs of trousers to each kazák, and a pot of dried oatmeal and ground millet apiece,— let no one take any more! There will be plenty of provisions, all that's needed, in the wagons. Let every kazák have two horses. And two hundred yoke of oxen must be taken, for we shall require them at the fords and marshy places. Maintain order, noble sirs, above all things. I know that there are some among you who, as soon as God sends greed, will immediately tear up nankin and rich velvets to make themselves foot-wrappers. Leave off such devilish habits; spurn every petticoat, and take only weapons, if you happen to come across good ones, and ducats or silver, noble sirs, for they are subject to capture, and useful in any case. And I'll tell you this beforehand, noble sirs: if any one gets drunk on this expedition, he will receive short shrift: I'll order him to be chained by the neck like a dog, to a transport, no matter who he may be, even were he the most heroic kazák in the whole army; he shall be shot on the spot like a dog, and flung out to be torn by the birds of prey, without burial, for a drunkard on the march deserves not Christian burial. Young men, obey the old men in all things! If a