Page:Taras Bulba. A Tale of the Cossacks. 1916.djvu/138

132. "Rise, let us go! Fear not, all are sleeping. Can you take one of these loaves if I cannot carry all?" So saying, he flung the sacks on his back, pulled out another sack of millet as he passed a wagon, took in his hands the loaves he had wanted to give the Tatár woman to carry and, bending somewhat under his load, went boldly through the ranks of slumbering Zaporozhtzi.

"Andríi," said old Bulba as he passed. His heart died within him. He halted, all of a tremble, and said softly: "What is it?"

"There's a woman with you! When I get up I'll give you a sound thrashing! Women will lead you to no good." So saying, he leaned his head upon his hand, and gazed intently at the muffled form of the Tatár.

Andríi stood there more dead than alive, not daring to look his father in the face. And when he did raise his eyes and glance at him, old Bulba was fast asleep, with his head resting in the palm of his hand.

He made the sign of the cross on his breast. Fear fled from his heart even more rapidly than it had attacked it. When he turned to look at the Tatár woman, she stood before him like a dark, granite statue, all muffled in her veil; and the glow of the crimson glare in the distance lighted up only her eyes, dull as the eyes of a corpse. He plucked