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But Taras did not look at the wood, nor did he think of the fire with which they were preparing to roast him: he gazed anxiously in the direction whence his Cossacks were firing. From his high point of observation he could see everything as in the palm of his hand. "Take possession, men," he shouted, "of the hillock behind the wood: they cannot climb it!"
The third Pisarenko had repulsed a whole squadron from the more distant waggons; and they were still fighting and killing amongst the other waggons, and even upon them. "How now, gentles?" cried Taras, stepping forward before them all: "is there still powder in your flasks? Is the Cossack force still strong? do the Cossacks yield?"
Andrii overtook them, and was on the point of catching Golopuitenko, when a powerful hand seized his horse's bridle. Andrii looked; before him stood Taras!
His movements now began to be marked by the assurance which comes from experience, and in them could be detected the germ of the future leader. His person strengthened, and his bearing grew majestically leonine. "What a fine leader he will make one of these days!" said old Taras. "He will make a splendid leader, far surpassing even his father!"
"It is my turn to speak a word, brother gentles," he began: "listen, my children, to an old man. The Koschevoi spoke well as the head of the Cossack army; being bound to protect it, and in respect to the treasures of the army he could say nothing wiser. That is so! Let that be my first remark; but now listen to my second. And this is my second remark: Taras spoke even more truly.
It was long before they lay down to sleep; and longer still before old Taras, meditating what it might signify that Andrii was not among the foe, lay down. Had the Judas been ashamed to come forth against his own countrymen? or had the Jew been deceiving him, and had he simply gone into the city against his will?
"To go," rang heavily through the Zaporozhian kurens. But such words did not suit Taras Bulba at all; and he brought his frowning, iron-grey brows still lower down over his eyes, brows like bushes growing on dark mountain heights, whose crowns are suddenly covered with sharp northern frost. "No, Koschevoi, your counsel is not good," said he. "You cannot say that.
That foolish girl! What a sermon he read to me! A regular judge. And she she was kind toward me." But all these thoughts stirred in him no feelings neither hatred toward Taras nor sympathy for Lubov.
At first the elderly workman who sat opposite Nekhludoff shrank and drew back his legs for fear of touching the gentleman, but after a while he grew quite friendly, and in talking to him and Taras even slapped Nekhludoff on the knee when he wanted to draw special attention to what he was saying. He told them all about his position and his work in the peat bogs, whence he was now returning home.
He laughed softly, and, stepping on tiptoe, went noiselessly into the other room, also adjoining the dining-room. There was no light there, and only a thin band of light from the dining-room, passing through the unclosed door, lay on the dark floor. Softly, with sinking heart and malicious smile, Foma walked up close to the door and stopped. "He's a clumsy fellow," said Taras.
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