owances
are kindly doubled, then you are ready to stretch out at full length,
and the enemies of Christ can not only take your very trousers off you,
but sneeze in your faces without your hearing them!"

The Cossacks all stood with drooping heads, knowing that they were
guilty; only Kukubenko, the hetman of the Nezamisky kuren, answered
back. "Stop, father!" said he; "although it is not lawful to make
a retort when the Koschevoi speaks before the whole army, yet it is
necessary to say that that was not the state of the case. You have not
been quite just in your reprimand. The Cossacks would have been guilty,
and deserving of death, had they got drunk on the march, or when engaged
on heavy toilsome labour during war; but we have been sitting here
unoccupied, loitering in vain before the city. There was no fast or
other Christian restraint; how then could it be otherwise than that a
man should get drunk in idleness? There is no sin in that. But we had
better show them what it is to attack innocent people. They first beat
us well, and now we will beat them so that not half a dozen of them will
ever see home again."

The speech of the hetman of the kuren pleased the Cossacks. They raised
their drooping heads upright and many nodded approvingly, muttering,
"Kukubenko has spoken well!" And Taras Bulba, who stood not far from the
Koschevoi, said: "How now, Koschevoi? Kukubenko has spoken truth. What
have you to say to this?"

"What have I to say? I say, Blessed be the father of such a son! It
does not need much wisdom to utter words of reproof; but much wisdom
is needed to find such words as do not embitter a man's misfortune, but
encourage him, restore to him his spirit, put spurs to the horse of his
soul, refreshed by water. I meant myself to speak words of comfort to
you, but Kukubenko has forestalled me."

"The Koschevoi has also spoken well!" rang through the ranks of the
Zaporozhtzi. "His words are good," repeated others. And even the
greyheads, who stood there like dark blue doves, nodded their heads and,
twitching their grey moustaches, muttered softly, "That was well said."

"Listen now, gentles," continued the Koschevoi. "To take the city, by
scaling its walls, or undermining them as the foreign engineers do,
is not proper, not Cossack fashion. But, judging from appearances,
the enemy entered the city without many provisions; they had not many
waggons with them. The people in the city are hungry; they will all e