Page:Taras Bulba. A Tale of the Cossacks. 1916.djvu/266

260 "What a warlike people!" went on the Jew. "Ah, woe is me, what a fine race! All cords and metal disks… they shine like the sun; and the pretty girls, whenever they behold warriors—Aï, aï!" Again the Jew wagged his head.

The heyduke twirled his upper moustache, and uttered a sound which somewhat resembled the neigh of a horse.

"I pray the noble lord to do us a service!" exclaimed the Jew: "Here's a prince who has come hither from a foreign land to get a look at the kazáks. He has never, in all his life, seen what sort of men the kazáks are."

The appearance of foreign counts and barons was sufficiently common in Poland: they were often drawn by curiosity to view this half-Asiatic corner of Europe. They regarded Moscow and the Ukraina as situated in Asia. So the heyduke bowed low, and thought fit to put in a few words of his own.

"I do not know, Your Excellency," said he, "why you should desire to see them. They are dogs, not men; and their Faith is such as no one respects."

"You lie, you son of the Devil!" said Bulba. "You're a dog, yourself! How dare you say that our Faith is not respected? It's your heretical faith which is not respected."