"Cut! slash!" roared the Cossacks.
A fearful tumult began in the stable. Shouts and cries were raised, which were overborne by the thundering voice of Zagloba,--
"Oh, you scoundrels, you man-eaters, you basilisks! I'll cut you to pieces, you mangy ruffians! You'll know a knightly hand. Attacking honest people by night, shutting a noble in a stable! Scoundrels! Come to me by ones or by twos, only come! Come along; but you'll leave your heads on the dung-heap, for I'll hew them off, as I live."
"Cut! cut!" shouted the Cossacks.
"We will burn the stable."
"I'll burn it myself, you ox-tails, and you with it."
"Several,--several at a time!" shouted an old Cossack. "Support the ladder, prop it with lances, take bundles of hay on your heads and go on! We must get him."
Then he mounted, and with him two comrades. The rounds began to break, the ladders bent still more; but more than twelve strong hands seized them by the sides propped by the lances, others thrust the points of lances through the opening to ward off the blows of the sabre.
A few moments later three bodies fell on the heads of those standing below. Zagloba, heated by his triumph, bellowed like a buffalo, and poured out such curses as the world had never heard, and from which the souls of the Cossacks would have died within them, if fury had not begun to possess them. Some thrust their lances into the loft; others hurried on the ladders, though sure death waited them in the opening. Suddenly a shout was heard at the door, and into the stable rushed Bogun himself. He was without a cap, in trousers and shirt; in his hand was a drawn sabre, and in his eyes fire.
"Through the thatch!" he shouted. "Tear the thatch apart and take him alive!"