Page:Taras Bulba. A Tale of the Cossacks. 1916.djvu/243

Rh Meanwhile his faithful comrade stood before him cursing and showering harsh, reproachful words upon him, without stint. Finally he seized him by the arms and legs, swaddled him like a baby, replaced all his bandages, rolled him up in an ox-hide, bound him with linden-bast, and fastening him with ropes to his saddle, dashed off with him again, at full speed, along the road.

"I'll get you there, even if not alive! I'll not abandon you for the Lyakhs to make mock at your kazák race, and rend your body in twain, and fling it into the water. Let the eagles claw your eyes from your brow, if so it must be; but let it be our own eagle of the steppe, and not a Polish eagle, not one which has flown hither from Polish soil. I'll bring you, though it be a corpse, to the Ukraina!"

Thus spoke his faithful comrade. He galloped on, without drawing breath, day and night, and brought him, insensible, into the Zaporozhian Syech itself. There he undertook to heal him, with unwearied care, with herbs and liniments. He sought out a skilful Jewess: she made Taras drink various potions for a whole month, and at last he began to improve. Whether it was owing to the medicine, or to his iron constitution gaining the upper hand, at any rate, in six weeks he was on his feet again; his wounds had closed, and only the