Page:Taras Bulba. A Tale of the Cossacks. 1916.djvu/73

Rh flowers. Through the tall, slender stems of the grass peeped light-blue, dark-blue and lilac corn-flowers; the yellow broom thrust up its pyramidal head; the parasol-shaped white flowers of the yarrow dotted its surface. A wheat-ear, brought God knows whence, was filling out to ripening. About their slender roots ran partridges, with necks outstretched. The air was filled with the notes of a thousand different birds. In the sky, motionless, hung the hawks, with wings outspread, and eyes rivetted intently on the grass. The cries of a vast flock of wild ducks moving up on one side, were echoed from God knows what distant lake. From the grass a gull arose with measured sweep and bathed luxuriously in the blue waves of air; and now she has vanished on high, and appears only as a black dot! Now she has turned her wings, and shimmers in the sunlight. Devil take you, Steppe, how beautiful you are!…

Our travellers halted only a few minutes for dinner: their escort of ten kazáks sprang from their horses, unbound the wooden casks of brandy and the gourds which were used for drinking vessels. They ate only bread and lard, or dry wheaten cakes; they drank but one cup apiece, merely to strengthen them (for Taras Bulba never permitted intoxication on the road), and then continued their journey until evening.