Page:Taras Bulba. A Tale of the Cossacks. 1916.djvu/214

208 battle. Taras had already divined it by the noise and movement in the city, and toiled energetically, making his arrangements, forming his men into columns, issuing orders and instructions. He ranged the kuréns in three camps, surrounding them with the wagons, in the guise of bulwarks,—a form of battle in which the Zaporozhtzi were invincible. He ordered two kuréns into ambush; he drove sharp stakes, broken guns, fragments of spears, into a part of the plain, with a view to forcing the enemy's cavalry upon it, should an opportunity present itself. And when all was done that was needed, he made a speech to the kazáks, not for the purpose of encouraging and freshening up their spirits,—he knew that they were strong of soul without that,—but simply because he wished to tell them all he had in his heart.

"I want to tell you, sir brothers, what our brotherhood is. You have heard from your fathers and grandfathers in what honour our land has always been held by all men. We have made ourselves known to the Greeks, and we captured gold from Tzargrad, and our cities were luxurious, and so were the temples and the Princes,—the Princes of the Russian people, our own Princes, not Catholic unbelievers. But the