The cunning hetman was silent. The various groups began to discuss the
matter, and the hetmans of the kurens to take counsel together; few
were drunk fortunately, so they decided to listen to reason.

A number of men set out at once for the opposite shore of the Dnieper,
to the treasury of the army, where in strictest secrecy, under water
and among the reeds, lay concealed the army chest and a portion of the
arms captured from the enemy. Others hastened to inspect the boats and
prepare them for service. In a twinkling the whole shore was thronged
with men. Carpenters appeared with axes in their hands. Old,
weatherbeaten, broad-shouldered, strong-legged Zaporozhtzi, with black
or silvered moustaches, rolled up their trousers, waded up to their
knees in water, and dragged the boats on to the shore with stout
ropes; others brought seasoned timber and all sorts of wood. The boats
were freshly planked, turned bottom upwards, caulked and tarred, and
then bound together side by side after Cossack fashion, with long
strands of reeds, so that the swell of the waves might not sink them.
Far along the shore they built fires and heated tar in copper
cauldrons to smear the boats. The old and the experienced instructed
the young. The blows and shouts of the workers rose all over the
neighbourhood; the bank shook and moved about.

About this time a large ferry-boat began to near the shore. The mass
of people standing in it began to wave their hands from a distance.
They were Cossacks in torn, ragged gaberdines. Their disordered
garments, for many had on nothing but their shirts, with a short pipe
in their mouths, showed that they had either escaped from some
disaster or had caroused to such an extent that they had drunk up all
they had on their bodies. A short, broad-shouldered Cossack of about