Harold Lamb

“ The eyes of the bogatyr opened very wide and his hands fumbled at the hilt that projected from his ribs. His feet, planted firmly, still upheld his body.
Now the koshevoi stepped forward, saying that the fight was at an end, and, putting his arm about Boron, laid the dying man on the ground.
"Hai, sir brother," he observed, "your days with us are over; may your Cossack soul find the glory that you earned on earth. Surely the bandura players will sing your name!"
A little sadly he handed Demid the scimitar that he drew from the body of the first swordsman and most reckless warrior of the camp. ”

“ He held up his baton for silence, and listened, as Boron had done, for a sound other than the breathing of men.
A shrewd man the koshevoi and no stranger to the wiles of his enemies. Only a month ago, good fortune alone had saved the camp from being surprized by the Turks. This was the hour in which an attack might well be made on the Siech, and in this hour the drummer whose duty it was to beat the alarm had been made helpless by the man who owned a signet ring of the Turks. ”

“ Demid held out in the palm of his hand a signet ring, wherein glowed a single topaz, inlaid with the crest of one of the high officers of the Imperial City.
"Aye, and that. ’Twas taken from the hand of a Turkish vizier who fell to my sword at our last sally along the Black Sea."
"Aye, bogatyr, when half the men of your regiment laid down their Cossack lives."
Demid handed the signet ring to the koshevoi.
"Father," he said quickly to the chief, "I say that Boron lied when he accused Ayub. See, here, before you, is his wealth. He is not of the masterless ones, for he serves a master. ”

“ The chief turned back to his hut, and Demid was escorted, not to the line of barracks, but to the central square where a torch burned beside the great drum that served to muster the men of the camp in an emergency.
Here he beheld a long spear stuck into the ground. Bound to the spear by cords that held his arms above his head was Ayub.
Demid’s solitary friend in the Siech glanced up, and hung his head. He lacked both sword and cap.
"He is a thief," said Vladimir bluntly. "One of the bravest of our ranks, a thief! ”

“ Boron, quivering with rage, dropped his hands to his sides and glanced at the sky in the east where the first streaks of dull red were showing.
"Ayub," said Demid slowly, "also spoke hard words against Boron. They were true words, as you see. Boron revenged himself by saying falsely that Ayub took his gold. While the old Cossack slept, the bogatyr put the six sequins in his pocket. The rest he carried around himself—for he lacked not of gold-pieces when he played at chess with me. ”

“ Demid looked up quickly, and presently he smiled.
"The king dies."
The game was over; he had lost, and he handed over his coat and girdle to Boron who swept up the gold-pieces. But so gravely had he spoken the three words that the bystanders and Boron stared at him searchingly.
"Well, you won’t ransom your comrade, Ayub, after all," remarked the ataman. "Unless you can bring up your Tatar allies who taught you chess and set the Siech at war. Then the drum would be beaten, and Ayub would be freed and given a sword, to fight like a Christian instead of dying like a dog." ”

“ If, at the end of three days the four hundred gold sequins that he stole—or an equal value—are not restored to their owner, he will be cut to pieces by Cossack swords."
The sentry shifted his arquebus to the other shoulder, and added in a lower tone:
"Do you wish some fine mead, Ayub? Or some gruel and bread? A man must die, you know—that always happens—still, by my faith, a comrade need not starve."
Ayub shook his head.
"Leave me Vladimir and you, too, Demid. I am a thief." ”

“ The only human being visible in the calm water below the cataracts was a thing of skin and huddled bones covered only partially by rags, a fisherman. He sat in a skiff at the edge of the reeds that lined the bank, holding a line of twisted gut.
Then he shaded his eyes and pulled in his line hurriedly. Out of the mist that drifted over the lower cataracts a man emerged in a canoe. Kneeling, Tatar fashion and using the short, broad oar as a paddle, he swept around a nest of rocks and plunged over one of the rapids. ”

“ So it is clear to me that Boron, having this"—he pointed to the drum-head—"sought the life of Ayub not because of a few sequins, but in revenge."
"And I say," added Boron calmly, "that one of us will sprinkle his blood in the earth before the day is here."
"Aye," assented Demid, "I claim the right of trial by combat."
He turned to the watching throng.
"Is it not fair, good sirs, that our swords should decide which of us is in the right?" ”

“ Here in a bowl-like depression fires glimmered in front of him, and he passed lines of stalls where Jews and Armenians were selling brandy, food and garments to a smattering of Cossacks. On the other side of the path forges, sunk in the earth, were clanging and clattering as sturdy smiths labored at mending swords or beating out dented armor. ”

“ Demid did not see Ayub, the stout knight of the Urals who had befriended him not long since on the Dnieper. He forebore asking for his acquaintance, until he had been examined and passed by the koshevoi ataman, the chief of the Cossacks.
At the entrance of a small hut in the center of the camp several warriors were at dice, while others were chuckling over a Turkish chess-board on which two of their number were rolling about the gold and silver chessmen, heedless of the rules of the game, which they could not play. ”

“ The fisherman did not wish to be tied in a sack and put to rest forever in Father Dnieper by the Cossacks for giving information to a spy of the Turks. Not he! The Dnieper banks were alive with enemies who would pay a round sum in gold sequins to learn the position of the Siech.
"Nay, old fellow." The stranger’s teeth flashed under his drooping mustache. "I am Demid, and I have come from the river Don in the Northeast. I seek a friend in the camp." ”

“ Now I know that you must be a Cossack knight. It is the way of the noble sirs to address a chap like that—only they threaten in the first breath, and kick a fellow with the second and throw him a silver piece with the third. ”

“ Although the young Cossack had lived in a wilderness and had hunted from the time when he was able to loose an arrow from a bow—although he studied the bank of the island carefully and analyzed every sound—he perceived nothing that indicated the presence of men, unless it were a haze in the air that might be smoke. ”

“ Look for me then."
"Nay, Demid, what the —— are you about? Just hear the lad—hasn’t been in the Siech for breakfast yet, and has done nothing but make an ass of himself at chess! To slink out of sight! That won’t help you make friends among the fine knights, at all——"
But Demid had disappeared already into the thin, morning mist. ”

“ Author of "The Boiling of the Warriors," "An Edge to a Sword," etc.
THE roar of the cataracts drowned all other sounds. It was a mighty voice, that of Father Dnieper—the river that ran through the vast steppe of the Cossacks to the shores of the Black Sea, the borderland of the Turk. ”