“Whence come you!” asked the Koschevoi, as the boat touched the shore. All the workers paused in their labours, and, raising their axes and chisels, looked on expectantly. “From a misfortune!” shouted the short Cossack. “From what?” “Permit me, noble Zaporozhtzi, to address you.” “Speak!” “Or would you prefer to assemble a council?” “Speak, we are all here.” The people all pressed together in one mass. “Have you then heard nothing of what has been going on in the hetman’s dominions?” “What is it?” inquired one of the kuren hetmans. “Eh! what! Evidently the Tatars have plastered up your ears so that you might hear nothing.” “Tell us then; what has been going on there?” “That is going on the like of which no man born or christened ever yet has seen.” “Tell us what it is, you son of a dog!” shouted one of the crowd, apparently losing patience. “Things have come to such a pass that our holy churches are no longer ours.” “How not ours?” “They are pledged to the Jews. If the Jew is not first paid, there can be no mass.” “What are you saying?” “And if the dog of a Jew does not make a sign with his unclean hand over the holy Easter-bread, it cannot be consecrated.” “He lies, brother gentles. It cannot be that an unclean Jew puts his mark upon the holy Easter-bread.” “Listen! I have not yet told all. Catholic priests are going about all over the Ukraine in carts. The harm lies not in the carts, but in the fact that not horses, but orthodox Christians (1), are harnessed to them. Listen! I have not yet told all. They say that the Jewesses are making themselves petticoats out of our popes’ vestments. Such are the deeds that are taking place in the Ukraine, gentles! And you sit here revelling in Zaporozhe; and evidently the Tatars have so scared you that you have no eyes, no ears, no anything, and know nothing that is going on in the world.” (1) That is of the Greek Church. The Poles were Catholics. “Stop, stop!” broke in the Koschevoi, who up to that moment had stood with his eyes fixed upon the earth like all Zaporozhtzi, who, on important occasions, never yielded to their first impulse, but kept silence, and meanwhile concentrated inwardly all the power of their indignation. “Stop! I also have a word to say. But what were you about? When your father the devil was raging thus, what were you doing yourselves? Had you no swords? How came you to permit such lawlessness?” “Eh! how did we come to permit such lawlessness? You would have tried when there were fifty thousand of the Lyakhs (2) alone; yes, and it is a shame not to be concealed, when there are also dogs among us who have already accepted their faith.” (2) Lyakhs, an opprobrious name for the Poles. “But your hetman and your leaders, what have they done?” “God preserve any one from such deeds as our leaders performed!” “How so?”