od old Cossacks Pokotipole, Lemisch, and Prokopovitch Koma.
Demid Popovitch also went with that party, because he could not sit long
in one place: he had tried his hand on the Lyakhs and wanted to try it
on the Tatars also. The hetmans of kurens were Nostiugan, Pokruischka,
Nevnimsky, and numerous brave and renowned Cossacks who wished to test
their swords and muscles in an encounter with the Tatars. There were
likewise many brave Cossacks among those who preferred to remain,
including the kuren hetmans, Demitrovitch, Kukubenko, Vertikhvist,
Balan, and Ostap Bulba. Besides these there were plenty of stout and
distinguished warriors: Vovtuzenko, Tcherevitchenko, Stepan Guska,
Okhrim Guska, Vikola Gonstiy, Zadorozhniy, Metelitza, Ivan Zakrutiguba,
Mosiy Pisarenko, and still another Pisarenko, and many others. They were
all great travellers; they had visited the shores of Anatolia, the salt
marshes and steppes of the Crimea, all the rivers great and small which
empty into the Dnieper, and all the fords and islands of the Dnieper;
they had been in Moldavia, Wallachia, and Turkey; they had sailed all
over the Black Sea, in their double-ruddered Cossack boats; they had
attacked with fifty skiffs in line the tallest and richest ships; they
had sunk many a Turkish galley, and had burnt much, very much powder in
their day; more than once they had made foot-bandages from velvets and
rich stuffs; more than once they had beaten buckles for their girdles
out of sequins. Every one of them had drunk and revelled away what would
have sufficed any other for a whole lifetime, and had nothing to show
for it. They spent it all, like Cossacks, in treating all the world, and
in hiring music that every one might be merry. Even now few of them
had amassed any property: some caskets, cups, and bracelets were hidden
beneath the reeds on the islands of the Dnieper in order that the Tatars
might not find them if by mishap they should succeed in falling suddenly
on the Setch; but it would have been difficult for the Tatars to find
them, for the owners themselves had forgotten where they had buried
them. Such were the Cossacks who wished to remain and take vengeance on
the Lyakhs for their trusty comrades and the faith of Christ. The old
Cossack Bovdug wished also to remain with them, saying, "I am not of
an age to pursue the Tatars, but this is a place to meet a good Cossack
death. I have long prayed God that when my life was to end I might end
it in