Page:The Russian story book, containing tales from the song-cycles of Kiev and Novgorod and other early sources.djvu/208

 slept always with one ear open, and he knew also that it was a fatal mistake to lose his calmness, especially when others about him had lost their own. So he turned slowly on his couch and said quietly, "Climb up into the damp oak, young Yermak, and make an effort to number the host which comes against us by counting the standards which are displayed." So Yermak climbed up into the damp oak, and Ilya turning upon his other side went to sleep once more. From his perch in the damp oak Yermak saw a vast host of the Golden Horde, and how at that moment the leaders were marshalling their men in battle array; and he knew that the shaking of the bough on which he sat came from the trembling of moist Mother Earth at the tramp of their myriad feet. So great was the army that the swift grey wolf could not trot round it in the space of a long spring day; the black raven could not fly about it in the longest day of summer; the grey bird could not wing its flight across it in the longest light of autumn.

Now Yermak had in him some of the qualities of a hero, for the size of the host roused his courage to such a height that he felt impelled to advance against it by himself, single and alone. So he leapt quickly from the damp oak, sprang upon his charger, and rode fiercely across the open steppe against the vanguard of that great host. Meanwhile the game of draughts went quietly on in the fair pavilion of white linen, and Ilya slept. For three days and three nights this went on while Yermak hurled himself