"Such times are come that even the holy churches are no longer ours!" "How so?" "Jews are made landlords thereof.[21] If one does not pay the toll to the Jew no mass can be performed." "What nonsense art thou saying?" "And if the cursed Jew does not put, with his damned finger, a mark upon the holy passover, the passover cannot be consecrated!" "He lies, gentlemen brothers! This cannot be, that an unclean Jew should put a sign upon the holy passover!" "Listen, only! I have more to tell you. The Latin priests now drive over all Ukraine in chariots. But the evil is not in their driving in chariots: the evil is in the chariots being no longer drawn by horses but by orthodox Christians. Hear me! I have more to tell you:--They say that Jewesses are now making themselves petticoats out of our priests' vestments. These are the things that happen in Ukraine, gentlemen! And you are here resting and carousing in your Ssiecha! Truly, it seems the Tartars have put you into such a fright, that you have no eyes left to see, no ears to hear what passes in the world!" "Stop! Stop!" interfered the Koschevoï, who had remained standing with his eyes fixed upon the ground, as well as all the Zaporoghians, who in important business never obeyed the first impulse, but kept silent, and in their silence gathered the stern force of indignation. "Stop! let me say _my_ word, too! And what did you do? you--may your father be beaten by the devil! Had you no sabres, then? Had you none? How did you let such profanations happen?" "How did we let such profanations happen? I should like to have seen you try to stop them when there were fifty thousand Poles, and--there is no use to conceal it--when there were some among us, the cursed dogs, who went over to the Polish faith, too!" "And your hetman and your colonels? what did they do?" "Our colonels did such doings, that God forbid any one else should do the same!" "How so?" "Why, so that the hetman now lies roasted in a copper ox at Warsaw, and the arms and heads of our colonels are carried to the fairs to be shown to the people.[22] Such were the doings of our colonels!" A shudder of horror ran through the whole crowd. A moment's silence reigned among it, like that which immediately precedes a terrible storm, then all at once a murmur arose and every one gave vent to his indignation. "Jews renting Christian churches! Popish priests to be driving about on orthodox Christians! Such torments to be suffered on Russian soil from accursed Papists! So to treat the hetman and the colonels! This must not be--this shall not be!" Speeches of this kind were heard on all sides. The Zaporoghians went on shouting and felt their strength. It was no longer the hum of a giddy people; strong and heavy characters were now aroused, who, if they were long before turning red-hot, yet, when once red-hot, kept their internal heat a long time.