Page:Taras Bulba. A Tale of the Cossacks. 1916.djvu/131

Rh above the conflagration, hovered birds, which looked like a cluster of tiny black crosses upon a fiery background. The town, thus laid bare, seemed asleep; its spires and roofs, and the stockade and walls flashed quietly in the glare of the distant conflagrations. Andríi made the rounds of the kazák ranks. The fires beside which the sentinels sat were on the point of dying out; and even the sentinels were asleep, having devoured oatmeal and dumplings with genuine kazák appetites. He was amazed at such carelessness, and said to himself: "'Tis well that there is no strong enemy near at hand, and no one to fear." At last he went to one of the transport-wagons, climbed into it, and lay down upon his back, thrusting his clasped hands under his head; but he could not sleep, and gazed long at the sky. It was all open before him; the air was pure and transparent; the dense mass of stars which constitutes the Milky Way, and traverses the sky in a belt, was flooded with light. From time to time Andríi forgot himself, to a degree, and a light mist of dreaming seemed to veil the heavens from him for a moment; and then it cleared away, and they became visible again.

During one of these intervals it seemed to him that some strange human figure was flitting before him. Thinking it was merely a dream-apparition