The riders came to an extensive square, where the _Rada_[14] was accustomed to assemble. The first person they saw was a Zaporoghian, seated on a tub, who, having taken off his shirt, was holding it in his hand, slowly mending the holes in it. Then they were stopped in their progress by a troop of musicians, in the midst of whom was dancing a young Zaporoghian, his cap carelessly thrown on one ear and his hands wildly tossed in the air. He cried incessantly, "Quicker, quicker, musicians! and thou, Thomas, don't spare brandy for the Christians." And Thomas, with a black eye, was busily engaged in pouring out brandy for every new-comer. Near the young Zaporoghian four old ones were also dancing, sometimes with quick, tiny steps, then again with the rapidity of the wind, throwing themselves on one side, almost on the heads of the musicians, then on a sudden, bending their knees till they were almost in a sitting posture, and rushing thus from side to side, making the hard-beaten earth ring with the heavy sonorous strokes of their silver-rimmed heels. The ground gave back a rumbling sound through all the vicinity, and the air at a great distance re-echoed the noisy trampling of their boots. But there was one among the dancers who shouted still louder, and rushed about still more impetuously than the others. His long crown-lock floated in the wind, his sinewy breast was naked; he had on his warm sheepskin coat, and the perspiration poured down his brow, as from out of a jug. "Well, now, take thy coat off," said Tarass at last; "dost thou not feel the heat?" "No, I cannot," answered the Zaporoghian. "And why not?" "I cannot; such is my habit, that what is once off, I give up for brandy." And long since, indeed, had the lad had no cap, no belt to his coat, no embroidered handkerchief; they had all gone the way one might expect. The farther the crowd extended, the denser it grew; new dancers came every moment; and strange were the feelings excited at watching the freest and most furious dance the world ever beheld, and which, from the name of its mighty inventors is called the "Cossack." "Ah, were it not for my horse!" cried Tarass, "I would, by Heavens I would, go into the dance too."