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When Taras Bulba recovered from the blow, and glanced towards the Dniester, the Cossacks were already in the skiffs and rowing away. Balls were showered upon them from above but did not reach them. And the old hetman's eyes sparkled with joy. "Farewell, comrades!" he shouted to them from above; "remember me, and come hither again next spring and make merry in the same fashion!
At that moment the Koschevoi came up and congratulated him, saying, "Here is the new hetman leading the army like an old one!" Old Bulba glanced round to see the new hetman, and beheld Ostap sitting on his horse at the head of the Oumantzi, his cap on one side and the hetman's staff in his hand.
Platoff turned with him, and brought him once more to action, "killing many," said the Hetman's despatch, "but making few prisoners." The army of Italy, if it could still be called an army, mingled with the few troops who still preserved some show of order under Ney, before they came in sight of Smolensko, and communicated to them their own terror and confusion.
The King of Sweden's idea, at that decisive moment, would seem to have been to take advantage of the hetman's friendly inclination, to find his way into the heart of Russia, using the rich Southern Provinces as his base, to stir up, with Mazeppa's help, the Don Cossacks, the Astrakhan Tartars, and, it may have been, the Turks themselves, and thus attack the Muscovite power in the rear.
"With thee, Alexis, I could be happy any where." "Then be it so," said the Cossack, joyously. "What ho!" he shouted, at the top of his ringing, trumpet-like voice. "Comrades, behold your hetman's bride!"
Greed led to no good: the head rolled off, and the body fell headless, sprinkling the earth with blood far and wide; whilst the Cossack soul ascended, indignant and surprised at having so soon quitted so stout a frame. The cornet had not succeeded in seizing the hetman's head by its scalp-lock, and fastening it to his saddle, before an avenger had arrived.
"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."
The hetman and leaders were uneasy; all became thoughtful, and remained silent, as though oppressed by some heavy foreboding. Not in vain had Taras prophesied: all came to pass as he had foretold. A little later, after the treacherous attack at Kaneva, the hetman's head was mounted on a stake, together with those of many of his officers. And what of Taras?
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