vealing something not utterly useless, "I have been in the city,
lord colonel!"

Taras looked at the Jew, and wondered how he had succeeded in getting
into the city. "What enemy took you there?"

"I will tell you at once," said Yankel. "As soon as I heard the uproar
this morning, when the Cossacks began to fire, I seized my caftan and,
without stopping to put it on, ran at the top of my speed, thrusting
my arms in on the way, because I wanted to know as soon as possible the
cause of the noise and why the Cossacks were firing at dawn. I ran to
the very gate of the city, at the moment when the last of the army was
passing through. I looked, and in command of the rearguard was Cornet
Galyandovitch. He is a man well known to me; he has owed me a hundred
ducats these three years past. I ran after him, as though to claim the
debt of him, and so entered the city with them."

"You entered the city, and wanted him to settle the debt!" said Bulba;
"and he did not order you to be hung like a dog on the spot?"

"By heavens, he did want to hang me," replied the Jew; "his servants had
already seized me and thrown a rope about my neck. But I besought the
noble lord, and said that I would wait for the money as long as his
lordship liked, and promised to lend him more if he would only help me
to collect my debts from the other nobles; for I can tell my lord that
the noble cornet had not a ducat in his pocket, although he has farms
and estates and four castles and steppe-land that extends clear to
Schklof; but he has not a penny, any more than a Cossack. If the Breslau
Jews had not equipped him, he would never have gone on this campaign.
That was the reason he did not go to the Diet."

"What did you do in the city? Did you see any of our people?"

"Certainly, there are many of them there: Itzok, Rachum, Samuel,
Khaivalkh, Evrei the pawnbroker--"

"May they die, the dogs!" shouted Taras in a rage. "Why do you name your
Jewish tribe to me? I ask you about our Zaporozhtzi."

"I saw none of our Zaporozhtzi; I saw only Lord Andrii."

"You saw Andrii!" shouted Bulba. "What is he doing? Where did you see
him? In a dungeon? in a pit? dishonoured? bound?"

"Who would dare to bind Lord Andrii? now he is so grand a knight.
I hardly recognised him. Gold on his shoulders and his belt, gold
everywhere about him; as the sun shines in spring, when every bird
twitters and sings in the orchard, so he shines, all gold. And his
horse, which the W