Page:Taras Bulba. A Tale of the Cossacks. 1916.djvu/168

162 same with the hay… I don't know whether one of their Saints will toss them down anything from heaven with hay-forks: God alone knows that: but their Catholic priests are clever at empty words. By one means or another they will leave the city. Divide yourselves, therefore, into three forces, and take up your posts before the three gates; five kuréns before the principal gate, and three kuréns before each of the others. Let the Dyadnivsky and Korsunsky barracks go into ambush! Colonel Taras and his regiment, into ambush! the Tytarevsky and the Tunnoshevsky kuréns, as reserves on the right side of the transports, the Shcherbenovsky and the upper Steblikivsky on the left! And select from the ranks the young men of most quarrelsome tongue to gall the foe! All Lyakhs are an empty-headed lot, and can't endure abuse, and perhaps this very day they will issue forth from the gates. Let each atamán inspect his kurén: if any are not of full strength, recruit them from the remnants of the Peryaslavsky kurén. Inspect them all afresh! Give a loaf and a beaker to each kazák, to sober him. But, surely, every one must be satiated after last night; for all stuffed themselves so that, truth to tell, I'm only surprised that no one burst during the night. And here is one further command: If any Jew rum-seller sells a kazák so much as a single jug of