bore them.

But the army of the enemy was already marching out of the city,
sounding drums and trumpets; and the nobles, with their arms akimbo,
were riding forth too, surrounded by innumerable servants. The stout
colonel gave his orders, and they began to advance briskly on the
Cossack camps, pointing their matchlocks threateningly. Their eyes
flashed, and they were brilliant with brass armour. As soon as the
Cossacks saw that they had come within gunshot, their matchlocks
thundered all together, and they continued to fire without cessation.

The detonations resounded through the distant fields and meadows,
merging into one continuous roar. The whole plain was shrouded in
smoke, but the Zaporozhtzi continued to fire without drawing
breath--the rear ranks doing nothing but loading the guns and handing
them to those in front, thus creating amazement among the enemy, who
could not understand how the Cossacks fired without reloading. Amid
the dense smoke which enveloped both armies, it could not be seen how
first one and then another dropped: but the Lyakhs felt that the balls
flew thickly, and that the affair was growing hot; and when they
retreated to escape from the smoke and see how matters stood, many
were missing from their ranks, but only two or three out of a hundred
were killed on the Cossack side. Still the Cossacks went on firing off
their matchlocks without a moment's intermission. Even the foreign
engineers were amazed at tactics heretofore unknown to them, and said
then and there, in the presence of all, "These Zaporozhtzi are brave
fellows. That is the way men in other lands ought to fight." And they
advised that the cannons should at once be turned on the camps.
Heavily roared the iron cannons with their wide throats; the earth
hummed and trembled far and wide, and the smoke lay twice as heavy