Page:Taras Bulba. A Tale of the Cossacks. 1916.djvu/228

222 spear, and many have I trampled under my horse's hoofs; and I no longer remember how many my bullets have slain. May our Russian land flourish forever!" and his spirit fled.

Kazáks, kazáks! surrender not the flower of your army. Already was Kukubenko surrounded, and seven men only remained out of all the Nezamaikovsky kurén, and these had already defended themselves beyond their strength; their garments were already stained with blood. Taras himself, perceiving his straits, hastened to his rescue; but the kazáks arrived too late. Before the enemies who surrounded him could be driven off, a spear was buried just below his heart. Quietly he sank into the arms of the kazáks who grasped him, and his young blood flowed in a stream, like precious wine brought from the cellar in a glass vessel by careless servants who, stumbling at the entrance, break the rich flask: the wine pours over the ground, and the master, hastening up, tears his hair, having reserved it for the best occasion of his life, in order that, if God should grant him, in his old age, to meet again the comrade of his youth, they might recall together days gone by, when men revelled otherwise and better than now. Kukubenko turned his eyes about, and said, "I thank God that it has been my lot to die before your eyes, comrades. May those who come after