Page:Taras Bulba. A Tale of the Cossacks. 1916.djvu/219

Rh powder could be smelled among the squares and streets in the most distant as well as the nearest quarters of the city. But those who aimed the cannon pointed them too high; the hot shot described too large a curve; screaming horribly they flew over the heads of the whole camp, and buried themselves deep in the earth at a distance, tearing up the ground and throwing the black dirt high in the air. At the sight of such lack of skill, the French engineer tore his hair, and undertook to point the cannon himself, heeding not the kazák bullets which burned and showered around him.

Taras saw from afar that the whole Nezamaikovsky and Steblikivsky kuréns were threatened with destruction, and uttered a ringing shout: "Get away instantly from behind the wagons, and mount your horses!" But the kazáks would not have succeeded in effecting these two movements had not Ostap dashed into the midst of the enemy, and wrenched the lunts from six cannoneers. But he was unable to wrench them from the remaining four: the Lyakhs drove him back. Meanwhile the foreign Captain had taken a lunt in his own hand, to fire off the largest of the cannon—such a cannon as none of the kazáks had ever beheld before. It looked horrible, with its wide mouth, and a thousand deaths peered forth from it. And as it thundered, the three others followed,