Page:Taras Bulba. A Tale of the Cossacks. 1916.djvu/265

Rh "Lead on!" said Taras firmly. The Jew obeyed.

At the door of the underground cells, which ran to a peak at the top, stood a heyduke, with a three-storied moustache. The upper story ran back, the second straight forward, and the third downward, which made him greatly resemble a cat.

The Jew shrank into nothing, and sidled up to him almost sideways: "Your High Excellency! High and Illustrious lord!"

"Are you speaking to me, Jew?"

"To you, illustrious lord."

"Hm,—but I'm merely a heyduke," said the merry-eyed man with the three-storied moustache.

"And I thought it was the Voevod himself, God is my witness, I did! Aï, aï, aï!" Thereupon the Jew wagged his head and spread out his fingers. "Aï, what an imposing aspect! A colonel, as God is my witness, a regular colonel! Another finger's breadth and he'd be a colonel. The noble lord ought to mount a stallion, one as fleet as a fly, and drill the regiments!"

The heyduke arranged the lower story of his moustache, and his eyes grew very merry.