nd provisions, to take the oath of fidelity, and
to ask for mercy and protection. Soon there also appeared a great number
of Tartars with their women and children. They were accorded a gracious
reception by Iermak. He quieted them and let them return to their camps,
after demanding from them a small tribute.

This man, recently the leader of a band of brigands, who had just showed
himself to be an intrepid hero and a skilful captain, likewise employed
his extraordinary genius in matters relating to administration and to
military discipline. He inspired rude and savage peoples with an extreme
confidence in a new power. He succeeded by a just severity in curbing
his turbulent companions-in-arms, so that they dared not practise any
vexations in a country conquered by their boldness and through a
thousand dangers, at the extremity of the world. It is related that the
inflexible Iermak, managing the Christian warriors in the combats,
treated them with rigor for the least fault, and that he punished
disobedience and fornication equally with death. He not only exacted
complete submission from his whole troop, but also purity of soul, in
order to render himself agreeable to the master of the earth and to the
Master of heaven, persuaded that God would accord him the victory with a
small number of virtuous warriors, rather than with a large number of
hardened sinners. "His Cossacks," says the annalist of Tobolsk, "led a
chaste life, on the march as well as during their stay in the capital of
Siberia. Their battles were followed by prayer." But they were not yet
at the end of their dangers.

Some time passed without news of Kutchum, and the Cossack leaders, with
no inquietude, gave themselves up to the pleasures of the chase in the
neighborhood of the town. But Kutchum had drawn near, in spite of his
wound, Mahmetkul had already remounted his horse, and on December 5th he
unexpectedly fell on twenty Russians fishing in the Lake of Abalak, and
massacred them all. As soon as Iermak heard of this surprise, he rushed
in pursuit of the enemy, overtook them near Abalak, at the place where
the borough town of Chamehin now stands, attacked and dispersed them.
Then, having removed the bodies of his companions-in-arms, he buried
them, with military honors, on the cope of Sauskan, near Isker, in the
old cemetery of the Khans. The intensity of the cold, the dangerous
snowstorms, the short winter days of these northern countries, did not
perm