"I knew that it would be so! As I am alive, I knew it! This is the meeting with the hetmans, with the whole Commonwealth! The hour of punishment has come! What is this?"
Again resounded the tramp; and this time several hundred Tartar horsemen appeared on the square. They rushed on at random. The crowd stopped the way before them. They rushed at the crowd, struck, beat, and dispersed it; they lashed their horses, urging them on to the road leading to Cherkasi.
"They run like a whirlwind," said Zakhar.
Scarcely had Skshetuski moved when a second division flew by, and after that a third. The flight seemed to be general. The guards before the houses began to grow uneasy, and also to show a wish to escape. Zakhar hurried through the porch.
"Halt!" cried he to the Mirgorod men.
Smoke, heat, disorder, the tramping of horses, sounds of alarm, the howling of the crowd in the light of the conflagration, were blended in one fearful picture on which the lieutenant gazed through the window.
"What a defeat there must be! what a defeat!" cried he to Zakhar, not considering that the latter could not share his delight.
Now a new division of fugitives rushed by like lightning. The thunder of cannon shook the houses of Korsún to their foundations. Suddenly a shrieking voice began to cry right there at the house,--
"Save yourselves! Hmelnitski is killed! Hmelnitski is killed! Tugai Bey is killed!"
On the square there was a real end of the world. People in terror rushed into the flames. The lieutenant fell upon his knees, raised his hands to heaven,--