from the table and the sideboard, and when the day’s display was over mounted some noble’s coach-box and drove his horses. There were folk of all kinds there. Sometimes they had not enough to drink, but all were equipped for war. The Cossack ranks stood quietly before the walls. There was no gold about them, save where it shone on the hilt of a sword or the mountings of a gun. The Zaporozhtzi were not given to decking themselves out gaily for battle: their coats-of-mail and garments were plain, and their black-bordered red-crowned caps showed darkly in the distance. Two men--Okhrim Nasch and Mikiga Golokopuitenko--advanced from the Zaporozhian ranks. One was quite young, the other older; both fierce in words, and not bad specimens of Cossacks in action. They were followed by Demid Popovitch, a strongly built Cossack who had been hanging about the Setch for a long time, after having been in Adrianople and undergoing a great deal in the course of his life. He had been burned, and had escaped to the Setch with blackened head and singed moustaches. But Popovitch recovered, let his hair grow, raised moustaches thick and black as pitch, and was a stout fellow, according to his own biting speech. “Red jackets on all the army, but I should like to know what sort of men are under them,” he cried. “I will show you,” shouted the stout colonel from above. “I will capture the whole of you. Surrender your guns and horses, slaves. Did you see how I caught your men?--Bring out a Zaporozhetz on the wall for them to see.” And they let out a Zaporozhetz bound with stout cords. Before them stood Khlib, the hetman of the Pereyaslavsky kuren, without his trousers or accoutrements, just as they had captured him in his drunken sleep. He bowed his head in shame before the Cossacks at his nakedness, and at having been thus taken like a dog, while asleep. His hair had turned grey in one night. “Grieve not, Khlib: we will rescue you,” shouted the Cossacks from below. “Grieve not, friend,” cried the hetman Borodaty. “It is not your fault that they caught you naked: that misfortune might happen to any man. But it is a disgrace to them that they should have exposed you to dishonour, and not covered your nakedness decently.” “You seem to be a brave army when you have people who are asleep to fight,” remarked Golokopuitenko, glancing at the ramparts. “Wait a bit, we’ll singe your top-knots for you!” was the reply. “I should like to see them singe our scalp locks!” said Popovitch, prancing about before them on his horse; and then, glancing at his comrades, he added, “Well, perhaps the Lyakhs speak the truth: if that fat-bellied fellow leads them, they will all find a good shelter.” “Why do you think they will find a good shelter?” asked the Cossacks, knowing that Popovitch was probably preparing some repartee. “Because the whole army will hide behind him; and the devil himself couldn’t help you to reach any one with your spear through that belly of his!”