"Let us hang all the Jews!" cried a voice from the crowd; "let them not make petticoats for their Jewesses out of our priests' robes! Let them not put signs on holy passovers! We will drown all the accursed race in the Dnieper." These words, uttered by some one from the crowd, flew like lightning from one to another and the people rushed to the suburb with the intention of putting all the Jews to death. The poor sons of Israel, losing the last remains of their almost always diminutive spirit, hid themselves in empty brandy casks, in ovens, and even crept under the petticoats of their Jewesses. But the Cossacks found them out everywhere. "Most illustrious gentlemen!" shouted a Jew, as tall and as long as a hop-pole, thrusting forth his miserable face, all contorted by fright, from amidst a group of his comrades, "most illustrious gentlemen! let us tell you only one word! We will tell you such a thing as you never heard of before! Such an important thing, that words cannot say how important it is!" "Let them say it!" said Boolba, who always liked to give a hearing to the accused party. "Most serene gentlemen!" said the Jew; "such gentlemen nobody ever saw before, by Heavens! never! Such good, such kind, such brave gentlemen never were before in the world!" His voice was choked and trembling with fear. "How could it be that we should ever have thought anything bad about the Zaporoghians! Those that are renting churches in Ukraine are not our people at all! by Heavens, they are not ours! They are no Jews! The devil knows what they are! They are people worthy to be spit at, and nothing more. Here are witnesses for me. Say I not true, Shlema? or thou, Shmool?" "By Heavens, so it is!" answered Shlema and Shmool, both in ragged caps,[23] and both pale as chalk from fright. "We have never yet been on the side of your enemies," continued the tall Jew; "and as for the Papists, we do not even wish to know them; may the devil haunt their sleep! We are for the Zaporoghians, like bosom-brothers!" "You, the brother of the Zaporoghians!" said one from the crowd. "That will never be, cursed Jews! Gentlemen, into the Dnieper with them all! Let us drown every one of the accursed race." "These words were the signal for seizing the Jews and throwing them into the river. Pitiful shrieks resounded on every side; but the stern Zaporoghians only laughed as they saw the Jews' slippered feet beating the air. The poor orator, who had called down this storm upon his own head, jumped out of his coat, which some one had already laid hold of, and left in a dirty tight waistcoat, grasped the feet of Boolba, and in a whining voice entreated him: 'Mighty lord! Most illustrious lord! I knew your brother, the late lamented Dorosh! He was a warrior who was an ornament to all chivalry! It was I who gave him eight hundred sequins, when he stood in need of his ransom from the Turks.'" "Didst thou know my brother?" asked Tarass.