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"Then kiss each other, and bid each other farewell; for God knows whether you will ever see each other alive again. Obey your hetman, but you know yourselves what you have to do: you know yourselves what Cossack honour requires." And all the Cossacks kissed each other. The hetmans first began it.
"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."
And the Cossacks again strained every nerve, as though they had suffered no loss. Only three kuren hetmans still remained alive. Red blood flowed in streams everywhere; heaps of their bodies and of those of the enemy were piled high. Taras looked up to heaven, and there already hovered a flock of vultures. Well, there would be prey for some one.
The cunning hetman was silent. The various groups began to discuss the matter, and the hetmans of the kurens to take counsel together; few were drunk fortunately, so they decided to listen to reason.
There were likewise many brave Cossacks among those who preferred to remain, including the kuren hetmans, Demitrovitch, Kukubenko, Vertikhvist, Balan, and Ostap Bulba.
The hope of meriting their pardon by the Czar inflamed the Cossacks, and the German or Polish captives, who sighed for liberty, considering Siberia the road to their fatherland. Iermak began by organizing his little army. He named the hetmans, subaltern officers, and appointed the brave John Koltzo as second in command.
Transported with joy at the news they had just received from the hetmans, the Stroganoffs set out at once for Moscow, eager to communicate to the Czar all the details of this glorious enterprise. They urged him to finish the reduction of Siberia, simple private citizens like themselves not possessing the means to preserve so vast a conquest.
All, both young and old, wanted to go on the expedition; and it was decided, on the advice of the chiefs, the hetmans of the kurens, and the Koschevoi, and with the approbation of the whole Zaporozhtzian army, to march straight to Poland, to avenge the injury and disgrace to their faith and to Cossack renown, to seize booty from the cities, to burn villages and grain, and spread their glory far over the steppe.
Under their distant rule, the hetmans or chiefs, chosen from among the Cossacks themselves, redistributed the territory into military districts.
Demid Popovitch also went with that party, because he could not sit long in one place: he had tried his hand on the Lyakhs and wanted to try it on the Tatars also. The hetmans of kurens were Nostiugan, Pokruischka, Nevnimsky, and numerous brave and renowned Cossacks who wished to test their swords and muscles in an encounter with the Tatars.
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