Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 08 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/58

46 better it will be for us. All of you come on! Fling yourselves on them all at once!"

And thus they did.

There were many Tartars there, and brave fellows! As the Cossacks rushed forward, the Tartars began to shoot with their bows. They overwhelmed the Cossacks with their arrows. Some of them they killed, and others they wounded. And the Cossacks were filled with fury, and rushed against the Tartars, and all whom they fell upon they killed.

In this town the Cossacks found many treasures, cattle, rugs, many furs, and much mead. After they had buried the dead and rested, they took their plunder and went on.

They had not sailed very far when, behold! on the bank there stood something like a city, and there was an army that seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see; and the whole army was surrounded by a ditch, and the ditch was protected by a palisade.

The Cossacks came to a pause. They began to feel dubious. Yermak called a council.

"Well, boys, what shall be done?"

The Cossacks were disheartened. Some said:—

"We must sail by." Others said:—

"We must go back."

And they grew desperate, and blamed Yermak, saying:—

"Why did you bring us hither ? Already they have killed so many of us, and wounded still more, and here we shall all perish."

And they began to shed tears.

And Yermak said to his sub-ataman, Ivan Koltso:—

"Well, now, Vanya, what do you think about it?"

And Koltso replied:—

"What do I think about it? If we are not killed to-day, then we shall be to-morrow, and if not to-morrow, then we shall die ingloriously in our beds. My advice is, leap on shore and make straight for the Tartars and God will decide."

And Yermak exclaimed:—