Page:Taras Bulba. A Tale of the Cossacks. 1916.djvu/139

Rh her by the sleeve, and both went on together, glancing incessantly behind them; and, at last, they descended the slope into a small ravine, almost a hole, at the bottom of which a stream flowed lazily, overgrown with sedge, and strewn with mossy hummocks. Descending into this ravine they were completely concealed from view of all the plain occupied by the Zaporozhian camp. At least, Andríi, as he glanced back, saw that the abrupt declivity rose behind him like a steep wall, taller than a man's stature. On its crest waved a few stalks of steppe-grass; and above them, in the sky, hung the moon, like a reaping-hook of pure, ruddy gold, set a-slant. The breeze, blowing off the steppe, warned them that the dawn was not far off. But nowhere was the distant crow of a cock audible. There had been not a single cock for a long time past, either in the city or in the devastated neighbourhood. They crossed the stream on a narrow plank, beyond which rose the opposite bank, that appeared higher than the one behind them, and formed a complete precipice. It seemed as though this were a strong and solid point of the citadel; at all events, the earthen rampart was lower there, and no garrison appeared behind it. But further on rose the thick monastery wall. The precipitous bank was all overgrown with steppe-grass, and in the narrow ravine