nded and captured me. I had no
chance of fighting my way clear from the throng."

"Be silent, I tell you, you devil's brat!" cried Tovkatch angrily, as a
nurse, driven beyond her patience, cries out at her unruly charge. "What
good will it do you to know how you got away? It is enough that you did
get away. Some people were found who would not abandon you; let that
be enough for you. It is something for me to have ridden all night
with you. You think that you passed for a common Cossack? No, they have
offered a reward of two thousand ducats for your head."

"And Ostap!" cried Taras suddenly, and tried to rise; for all at once he
recollected that Ostap had been seized and bound before his very eyes,
and that he was now in the hands of the Lyakhs. Grief overpowered him.
He pulled off and tore in pieces the bandages from his wounds, and threw
them far from him; he tried to say something, but only articulated some
incoherent words. Fever and delirium seized upon him afresh, and he
uttered wild and incoherent speeches. Meanwhile his faithful comrade
stood beside him, scolding and showering harsh, reproachful words upon
him without stint. Finally, he seized him by the arms and legs, wrapped
him up like a child, arranged all his bandages, rolled him in an
ox-hide, bound him with bast, and, fastening him with ropes to his
saddle, rode with him again at full speed along the road.

"I'll get you there, even if it be not alive! I will not abandon your
body for the Lyakhs to make merry over you, and cut your body in twain
and fling it into the water. Let the eagle tear out your eyes if it must
be so; but let it be our eagle of the steppe and not a Polish eagle, not
one which has flown hither from Polish soil. I will bring you, though it
be a corpse, to the Ukraine!"

Thus spoke his faithful companion. He rode without drawing rein, day
and night, and brought Taras still insensible into the Zaporozhian Setch
itself. There he undertook to cure him, with unswerving care, by the aid
of herbs and liniments. He sought out a skilled Jewess, who made Taras
drink various potions for a whole month, and at length he improved.
Whether it was owing to the medicine or to his iron constitution gaining
the upper hand, at all events, in six weeks he was on his feet. His
wounds had closed, and only the scars of the sabre-cuts showed how
deeply injured the old Cossack had been. But he was markedly sad and
morose. Three deep wrinkles engraved themse