Page:Taras Bulba. A Tale of the Cossacks. 1916.djvu/134

128 "She has had nothing to eat for two days."

"What!"

"Not one of the inhabitants has had a morsel of bread for a long while past; all have been eating earth only."

Andríi was astonished.

"The young lady saw you from the city ramparts, among the Zaporozhtzi. She said to me, 'Go, say to the knight: If he remembers me, let him come to me; and do not forget to make him give you a bit of bread for my aged mother, for I do not wish to see my mother die before my very eyes. Better that I should die first, and she afterwards! Beseech him: clasp his knees, his feet: he, also, has an aged mother; let him give you bread for her sake.'"

Many feelings awoke and flamed up in the young kazák's breast.

"But how came you hither? By what road did you arrive?"

"By an underground passage."

"Is there an underground passage?"

"Yes."

"Where?"

"You will not betray it, knight?"

"I swear by the holy Cross that I will not."

"You must descend into the gully, and cross the water-course yonder, among the reeds."