ed from the enemy. Others hastened to inspect the boats and
prepare them for service. In a twinkling the whole shore was
thronged with men. Carpenters appeared with axes in their hands. Old,
weatherbeaten, broad-shouldered, strong-legged Zaporozhtzi, with black
or silvered moustaches, rolled up their trousers, waded up to their
knees in water, and dragged the boats on to the shore with stout ropes;
others brought seasoned timber and all sorts of wood. The boats were
freshly planked, turned bottom upwards, caulked and tarred, and then
bound together side by side after Cossack fashion, with long strands of
reeds, so that the swell of the waves might not sink them. Far along the
shore they built fires and heated tar in copper cauldrons to smear the
boats. The old and the experienced instructed the young. The blows and
shouts of the workers rose all over the neighbourhood; the bank shook
and moved about.

About this time a large ferry-boat began to near the shore. The mass of
people standing in it began to wave their hands from a distance. They
were Cossacks in torn, ragged gaberdines. Their disordered garments, for
many had on nothing but their shirts, with a short pipe in their mouths,
showed that they had either escaped from some disaster or had caroused
to such an extent that they had drunk up all they had on their bodies.
A short, broad-shouldered Cossack of about fifty stepped out from the
midst of them and stood in front. He shouted and waved his hand more
vigorously than any of the others; but his words could not be heard for
the cries and hammering of the workmen.

"Whence come you!" asked the Koschevoi, as the boat touched the shore.
All the workers paused in their labours, and, raising their axes and
chisels, looked on expectantly.

"From a misfortune!" shouted the short Cossack.

"From what?"

"Permit me, noble Zaporozhtzi, to address you."

"Speak!"

"Or would you prefer to assemble a council?"

"Speak, we are all here."

The people all pressed together in one mass.

"Have you then heard nothing of what has been going on in the hetman's
dominions?"

"What is it?" inquired one of the kuren hetmans.

"Eh! what! Evidently the Tatars have plastered up your ears so that you
might hear nothing."

"Tell us then; what has been going on there?"

"That is going on the like of which no man born or christened ever yet
has seen."

"Tell us what it is, you son of a dog!" shouted one of the crowd,
apparen