Page:Taras Bulba. A Tale of the Cossacks. 1916.djvu/226

220 squadron from the more distant wagons; and they were still fighting and killing round the other wagons, and even upon them.

"How now, noble sirs! " cried Atamán Taras, stepping forward before them all: "is there still powder in your flasks? Is the kazák force still strong? do not the kazáks yield?"

"There is still powder in our flasks, batko; the kazák force is still strong; the kazáks do not yield!"

But Bovdyug had already toppled off one of the wagons; a bullet had struck him straight under the heart. The old man collected all his strength, and said: "I sorrow not at parting with this world! God grant to every man such an end! May the Russian land be forever glorious!" and Bovdyug's spirit soared on high, to tell the old men who had gone on long before that men still knew how to fight on Russian soil, and, better still, that they knew how to die for it and for the holy Faith.

Balaban, atamán of a kurén, soon after fell to the ground, also from a wagon. Three mortal wounds had he received, from a spear, a bullet, and a sword. He had been one of the most valorous of the kazáks, and had accomplished a great deal during his atamánship, in expeditions on the sea; but more glorious than all the rest was his expedition to the shores of Anatolia. There