Page:Taras Bulba. A Tale of the Cossacks. 1916.djvu/273

Rh Ostap halted. He was to be the first to quaff the bitter cup. He glanced at his comrades, raised his hand, and said in a loud voice: "God grant that none of the heretics who stand here may hear, impious wretches, how Christians suffer! Let none of us utter a single word!" Then he walked up to the scaffold.

"Well done, son! well done!" said Bulba softly, and bowed his grey head.

The executioner tore off Ostap's old rags; they fastened his arms and legs in stocks expressly prepared, and—we will not harrow the reader with a picture of the hellish tortures, which would make his hair rise upright on his head. They were the offspring of that coarse, wild age, when men still led the bloody life of warlike expeditions only, and hardened their souls within them, until no sense of humanity remained. In vain did some—a few who were exceptions in that age—oppose such terrible measures. In vain did the King and many knights, enlightened in mind and soul, demonstrate that such severity of punishment could only fan the flame of vengeance in the kazák nation. But the power of the King and the opinion of the wise were as nothing in comparison with the savage will of the magnates of the kingdom who, by their thoughtlessness and incomprehensible