Page:Taras Bulba. A Tale of the Cossacks. 1916.djvu/143

 VI

NDRÍI could hardly move in the dark and narrow earthen corridor, as he followed the Tatár, dragging after him his sacks of bread. "It will soon be light," said his guide: "we are nearing the spot where I placed a candle." And, in fact, the dark earthen walls began to be gradually illuminated. They reached a little widening where, apparently, there had once been a chapel; at least, a small table was set against the wall, like an altar-table, and above it was visible the faded, almost entirely obliterated picture of a Catholic Madonna. A small silver lamp hanging before it barely illuminated it. The Tatár stooped, and picked up from the earth a brass candlestick with a tall, slender foot, and snuffers, pin, and extinguisher hanging from it on chains, which she had left there. She lighted it at the silver lamp. The light grew stronger, and as they went on, now illumined by it, and again enveloped in pitchy shadow, they suggested a picture by Gerard Douw.

The knight's handsome, rosy countenance,