own the gage of
war to the Tartars, and would soon feel their hand in all its dreaded
strength. The khan, on hearing of the murder of his ambassador, burst
into a terrible rage. The civil wars which divided the Golden Horde had
for the time ceased, and Mamai, the khan, gathered all the power of the
Horde and marched on defiant Moscow, vowing to sweep that rebel city
from the face of the earth.

The Russians did not wait his coming. All dissensions ceased in the
face of the impending peril, all the princes sent aid, and Dmitri
marched to the Don at the head of an army of two hundred thousand men.
Here he found the redoubtable Mamai with three times that number of the
fierce Tartar horsemen in his train.

"Yonder lies the foe," said Dmitri to his princely associates. "Here
runs the Don. Shall we await him here, or cross and meet him with the
river at our backs?"

"Let us cross," was the unanimous verdict. "Let us be first in the
assault."

At once the order was given, and the battalions marched on board the
boats and were ferried across the stream, at a short distance from the
opposite bank of which the enemy lay. No sooner had they landed than
Dmitri ordered all the boats to be cast adrift. It was to be victory or
death; no hope of escape by flight was left; but well he knew that the
men would fight with double valor under such desperate straits.

The battle began. On the serried Russian ranks the Tartars poured in
that impetuous assault which had so often carried their hosts to
victory. The Russians defended themselves with fiery valor, assault
after assault was repulsed, and so fiercely was the field contested that
multitudes of the fallen were trampled to death beneath the horses'
feet. At length, however, numbers began to tell. The Russians grew weary
from the closeness of the conflict. The vast host of the Tartars enabled
them to replace with fresh troops all that were worn in the fight.
Victory seemed about to perch upon their banners.

Dismay crept into the Russian ranks. They would have broken in flight,
but no avenue of escape was left. The river ran behind them, unruffled
by a boat. Flight meant death by drowning; fight meant death by the
sword. Of the two the latter seemed best, for the Russians firmly
believed that death at the hands of the infidels meant an immediate
transport to the heavenly mansions of bliss.

At this critical moment, when the host of Dmitri was wavering between
panic and courage,