Page:Taras Bulba. A Tale of the Cossacks. 1916.djvu/207

Rh the present moment. The work before us is great in labour, and in glory for the kazáks! Let us, therefore, comrades, drink all together,—let us drink, before all else, to the Holy Orthodox Faith, that the day may come, at last, when it may be spread over all the world, and that everywhere there may be but one Faith, and that all Mussulmans may become Christians! And let us drink also, all together, to the Syech, that it may stand long for the destruction of the Mussulmans, that each year there may issue forth from it young men, each better, each handsomer, than the other. And let us also drink, all together, to our own glory, that our grandsons and the sons of those grandsons may say that there once were men who were not ashamed of comradeship, and who never betrayed one another. Now—to the Faith, sir brothers, to the Faith!"

"To the Faith!" shouted, with thick voices, those who were standing in the near-by ranks. "To the Faith!" those more distant took up the cry,—and all, both young and old, drank to the Faith.

"To the Syech!" said Taras, raising his hand high above his head.

"To the Syech!" echoed the foremost ranks. "To the Syech!" said the old men softly, twitching their grey moustaches; and eagerly as young