Page:Taras Bulba. A Tale of the Cossacks. 1916.djvu/136

130 still at the mere thought of seeing her again, and his young knees shook. When he reached the transport, he had utterly forgotten the reason for his coming; he raised his hand to his brow, and rubbed it long, trying to recollect what he meant to do. At last he trembled, and was filled with terror: the thought suddenly occurred to him that she was dying of hunger. He flung himself upon the wagon and seized several large loaves of black bread; but then he thought: "Is not this food, which is suited to a robust and easily-satisfied Zaporozhetz, too coarse and unfit for her delicate frame?" Then he remembered that the Koshevói, on the previous evening, had reproved the cooks for having cooked up all the buckwheat flour into porridge at once, when there was plenty for at least three times. In the full assurance that he would find plenty of porridge in the kettles, he drew out his father's travelling kettle, and went with it to the cook of their barrack, who was sleeping alongside two huge kettles, holding about ten bucketfuls apiece, under which the ashes still glowed. Glancing into them, he was amazed to find both empty. Supernatural powers must have been required to eat it all, the more so as their barrack numbered fewer men than the others. He looked into the kettles of the other kuréns,—nothing anywhere. Involuntarily there recurred