over the plain. They smelt the reek of the powder among the squares
and streets in the most distant as well as the nearest quarters of the
city. But those who laid the cannons pointed them too high, and the
shot describing too wide a curve flew over the heads of the camps, and
buried themselves deep in the earth at a distance, tearing the ground,
and throwing the black soil high in the air. At the sight of such lack
of skill the French engineer tore his hair, and undertook to lay the
cannons himself, heeding not the Cossack bullets which showered round
him.

Taras saw from afar that destruction menaced the whole Nezamaikovsky
and Steblikivsky kurens, and gave a ringing shout, "Get away from the
waggons instantly, and mount your horses!" But the Cossacks would not
have succeeded in effecting both these movements if Ostap had not
dashed into the middle of the foe and wrenched the linstocks from six
cannoneers. But he could not wrench them from the other four, for the
Lyakhs drove him back. Meanwhile the foreign captain had taken the
lunt in his own hand to fire the largest cannon, such a cannon as none
of the Cossacks had ever beheld before. It looked horrible with its
wide mouth, and a thousand deaths poured forth from it. And as it
thundered, the three others followed, shaking in fourfold earthquake
the dully responsive earth. Much woe did they cause. For more than one
Cossack wailed the aged mother, beating with bony hands her feeble
breast; more than one widow was left in Glukhof, Nemirof, Chernigof,
and other cities. The loving woman will hasten forth every day to the
bazaar, grasping at all passers-by, scanning the face of each to see
if there be not among them one dearer than all; but though many an
army will pass through the city, never among them will a single one of
all their dearest be.