the lieutenant, contemptuously. "Is that Cossack in the
service of your sons?"

The old princess threw herself back in the seat.

"What do you mean? Why, that is Bogun, lieutenant-
colonel, a famous hero, a friend of my sons, and adopted
by me as a sixth son. Impossible that you have not heard
his name, for all know of him."

This name was, in fact, well known to Pan Yan. From
among the names of various colonels and Cossack atamans
this one had come to the top, and was on every lip on
both banks of the Dnieper. Blind minstrels sang songs of
Bogun in market-places and shops, and at evening meet-
ings they told wonders about the young leader. Who he
was, whence he had come, was known to no man. This
much was certain,--the steppes, the Dnieper, the Cataracts,
and Chertomelik, with its labyrinth of narrows, arms, isl-
ands, rocks, ravines, and reeds, had been his cradle. From
childhood he had lived and communed with that wild world.
In time of peace he went with others to fish and hunt,
battered through the windings of the Dnieper, wandered
over swamps and reeds with a crowd of half-naked com-
rades; then again he spent whole months in forest depths.
His school was in raids to the Wilderness on the herds of
the Tartars, in ambushes, battles, campaigns against Tartar
coast towns, against Belgorod, Wallachia, or with boats on
the Black Sea. He knew no days but days on his horse,
no nights but nights at a steppe fire.

Soon he became the favorite of the entire lower country,
a leader of others, and surpassed all men in daring. He
was ready to go with a hundred horse even to Bagche
Sarai, and start up a blaze under the very eyes of the
Khan; be burned Tartar towns and villages, exterminated
the inhabitants, tore captive murzas to pieces with horses,
came down like a tempest, passed by like death. On the
sea he fell upon Turkish galleys with frenzy, swept down
upon the centre of Budjak,--rushed into the lion's mouth,
as 'tis said. Some of his expeditions were simple madness.
Men less daring, less fond of danger, perished impaled on
stakes in Stamboul, or rotted at the oar on Turkish galleys;
he always escaped unhurt, and with rich booty. It was
said that he had collected immense treasures, which he had
hidden in the reeds of the Dnieper; but it was also seen
more than once how with muddy boots he had stamped
upon cloth of gold, and spread carpets under the hoofs of