Page:Taras Bulba. A Tale of the Cossacks. 1916.djvu/181

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TARAS BULBA
175

mingle with the others in the ranks, and those who had no commands rode alone with their retinues. After these came more companies, and after these still, emerged the Cornet, then more files of men, and then the fat Colonel; and quite in the rear of the whole army came, last of all, the little Colonel. "Stop them! Keep them from drawing up, from forming in line!" shouted the Koshevói: "Let all the kuréns attack them at once! Abandon the other gates! Tytarevsky kurén, fall on one flank! Dyadkovsky kurén, fall on the other! Attack them in the rear, Kukubenko and Palivoda! Stop them, stop them! Separate them!" And the kazáks attacked on all sides, killing the Lyakhs, throwing them into confusion, and being thrown into confusion themselves. They did not even give them time to fire: it came to swords and spears at once. All merged together in a heap, and each man had an opportunity to distinguish himself.

Demid Popovich ran three common soldiers through, and knocked two of the highest nobles from their horses, saying: "Here are good horses! I have long wanted to get hold of just such horses!" And he drove the horses far afield, shouting to the kazáks who were standing about to catch them. Then he flung himself again into the mass, fell again upon the fallen nobles,