Page:Taras Bulba. A Tale of the Cossacks. 1916.djvu/280

274 and a Chief Bearer of the Hetman's mace of office, rode behind the Hetman. A Cornet-general carried the principal standard; many other standards and banners floated afar; the assistants of the Hetman's mace-bearer bore the Hetman's staff. There were also many other officials of the regiment, of the transport-wagons, and of the general army, and regimental scribes, and with them detachments of foot-soldiers and of cavalry. There were almost as many free kazáks and volunteers as there were registered kazáks. The kazáks had risen up everywhere, in Chigirin, from Pereyaslav, from Baturin, from Glukhov, from the regions of the lower Dnyeper, from the whole of its upper course and from the islands. Innumerable horses, and countless camps of carts stretched across the plain. And among all these kazáks, among all those eight regiments, one regiment was the flower of them all, and it was led by Taras Bulba. Everything contributed to give him weight over the others: his advanced years, his experience and skill in directing his troops, and his hatred of the foe, which surpassed that of all the rest. His grey head dreamed of nothing but fire and the halter, and his utterances in the councils of war breathed nothing short of annihilation.

It is not worth while to describe all the battles in which the kazáks distinguished themselves, or