"Bogun!" exclaimed some voices.
"Yes. He has already swept away Yeremi's garrison at Vassílyevka; but they wounded him in the engagement, and he lies now in Cherkasi struggling with Mother Death. And since he is not here, there is no one here as I see. Where is Cossack renown? Where are the Pavlyuks, the Nalivaikas, the Lobodas, and the Ostranitsas?"
A short, thick man, with a blue and gloomy face, and a mustache red as fire over a crooked mouth, and with green eyes, rose from the bench, pushed forward toward Hmelnitski, and said, "I will go." This was Maksim Krívonos.
Shouts of "Glory to him!" rose in thunder; but he stood with his baton at his side, and spoke with a hoarse and halting voice,--
"Do not think, Hetman, that I feel fear. I should have stood up at first, but I thought, 'There are better than I!' But matters being as they are, I will go. Who are you? [turning to the colonels]. You are the heads and the hands; but I have no head, only hands and a sword. Once my mother bore me! War is my mother and my sister. Vishnyevetski slaughters, I will slaughter; he hangs, and I will hang. But you, Hetman, give me good warriors; for with a mob you can do nothing with Vishnyevetski. And so I go to take castles, kill, slaughter, hang! Death to the white hands!"
Another ataman stepped forward. "I will go with you, Maksim." This was Pulyan.
"And Chernota of Gadyach, and Gladki of Mirgorod, and Nosach will go with you," said Hmelnitski.
"We will," said they, in one voice; for the example of Krívonos roused them, and courage entered them.
"Against Yeremi, against Yeremi!" thundered shouts through the assembly. "Cut! slay!" repeated the Brotherhood; and after a time the council became a carousal. The regiments assigned to Krívonos drank deeply, for they were going to death. They knew this well themselves, but there was no fear in their hearts. "Once our mother bore us!" repeated they after their leader; and on this account they spared nothing on themselves, as is usual before death. Hmelnitski permitted and encouraged this; the crowd followed their example. The legions began to sing songs in a hundred thousand voices. Horses let loose and prancing through the camp raised clouds of dust, and caused indescribable disorder. They were chased with cries and shouts and laughter. Great crowds loitered along the river, fired muskets, crowded and pushed to the quarters of the hetman himself, who finally ordered Yakubovich to drive them away. Then began fighting and confusion, till a drenching rain drove them all to the wagons and tents.
In the evening a storm burst forth in the sky. Thunder rolled from one end of the clouds, to the other; lightning flashed through the whole country, now with white and now with ruddy blaze. In the light of these flashes Krívonos marched out of camp at the head of sixty thousand men,--some from the best warriors, the rest from the mob.