though desirous of revealing something not utterly useless, "I have
been in the city, lord colonel!"

Taras looked at the Jew, and wondered how he had succeeded in getting
into the city. "What enemy took you there?"

"I will tell you at once," said Yankel. "As soon as I heard the uproar
this morning, when the Cossacks began to fire, I seized my caftan and,
without stopping to put it on, ran at the top of my speed, thrusting
my arms in on the way, because I wanted to know as soon as possible
the cause of the noise and why the Cossacks were firing at dawn. I ran
to the very gate of the city, at the moment when the last of the army
was passing through. I looked, and in command of the rearguard was
Cornet Galyandovitch. He is a man well known to me; he has owed me a
hundred ducats these three years past. I ran after him, as though to
claim the debt of him, and so entered the city with them."

"You entered the city, and wanted him to settle the debt!" said Bulba;
"and he did not order you to be hung like a dog on the spot?"

"By heavens, he did want to hang me," replied the Jew; "his servants
had already seized me and thrown a rope about my neck. But I besought
the noble lord, and said that I would wait for the money as long as
his lordship liked, and promised to lend him more if he would only
help me to collect my debts from the other nobles; for I can tell my
lord that the noble cornet had not a ducat in his pocket, although he
has farms and estates and four castles and steppe-land that extends
clear to Schklof; but he has not a penny, any more than a Cossack. If
the Breslau Jews had not equipped him, he would never have gone on
this campaign. That was the reason he did not go to the Diet."