"Oh, many, many!"
"Well, then, go! God be with you!"
"Thank you kindly, Lieutenant. God conduct you!"
The dragoons opened their ranks, and Anton's escort rode out from among them to the mouth of the ravine.
After he had issued from the ravine, Anton stopped and listened carefully; and when the dragoons had vanished from sight, and the last echo had ceased, he turned to his Cossacks, and said,--
"Do you know, you simpletons, that were it not for me, you would soon be gasping, empaled on stakes, in Lubni? And now, forward, even if we drive the last breath out of our horses!"
They rushed on with all speed.
"We are lucky, and doubly so," thought Anton,--"first, in escaping with sound skins, and then because those dragoons were not marching from Zólotonosha, and Zagloba missed them; for if he had met them, he would have been safe from every pursuit."
In truth, fortune was very unfavorable to Zagloba in not letting him come upon Kushel and his company; for then he would have been rescued at once, and freed from every fear.
Meanwhile the news of the catastrophe at Korsún came upon Zagloba at Próhorovka like a thunderbolt. Reports had already been passing through the villages and farmhouses on the road to Zólotonosha of a great battle, even of the victory of Hmelnitski; but Zagloba did not lend them belief, for he knew from experience that every report grows and grows among the common people to unheard of dimensions, and that specially of the preponderance of the Cossacks the people willingly told wonders. But in Próhorovka it was difficult to doubt any longer. The terrible and ominous truth struck like a club on the head. Hmelnitski had triumphed, the army of the king was swept away, the hetmans were in captivity, and the whole Ukraine was on fire.