heavens. Here the black, burned monastery like a grim Carthusian monk
stood threatening, and displaying its dark magnificence at every
flash; there blazed the monastery garden. It seemed as though the
trees could be heard hissing as they stood wrapped in smoke; and when
the fire burst forth, it suddenly lighted up the ripe plums with a
phosphoric lilac-coloured gleam, or turned the yellowing pears here
and there to pure gold. In the midst of them hung black against the
wall of the building, or the trunk of a tree, the body of some poor
Jew or monk who had perished in the flames with the structure. Above
the distant fires hovered a flock of birds, like a cluster of tiny
black crosses upon a fiery field. The town thus laid bare seemed to
sleep; the spires and roofs, and its palisade and walls, gleamed
quietly in the glare of the distant conflagrations. Andrii went the
rounds of the Cossack ranks. The camp-fires, beside which the
sentinels sat, were ready to go out at any moment; and even the
sentinels slept, having devoured oatmeal and dumplings with true
Cossack appetites. He was astonished at such carelessness, thinking,
"It is well that there is no strong enemy at hand and nothing to
fear." Finally he went to one of the waggons, climbed into it, and lay
down upon his back, putting his clasped hands under his head; but he
could not sleep, and gazed long at the sky. It was all open before
him; the air was pure and transparent; the dense clusters of stars in
the Milky Way, crossing the sky like a belt, were flooded with light.
From time to time Andrii in some degree lost consciousness, and a
light mist of dream veiled the heavens from him for a moment; but then
he awoke, and they became visible again.

During one of these intervals it seemed to him that some strange human
figure flitted before him. Thinking it to be merely a vision which
would vanish at once, he opened his eyes, and beheld a withered,