"How long I have slept!" said Tarass, awakening, as if after a heavy drunken sleep, and endeavouring to make out the surrounding objects. He felt a fearful weakness in all his limbs. Scarcely could his eyes follow the outlines of the walls and corners of an unknown room. At last he recognised Tovkach, who was sitting beside him, and seemed to watch his every breath.
"Yes," thought Tovkach to himself, "thou hast all but had thy last sleep!" He, however, said nothing, and held up his finger, to make Tarass understand that he was to be silent.
"Tell me, where am I now?" asked Tarass, collecting his thoughts, and endeavouring to bring back his recollection of the past.
"Hold thy tongue," said his comrade, sternly rebuking him. "What wouldst thou know more? Dost thou not feel that thou art all mangled? For the last fortnight we have been riding hard with thee, without ever stopping, and thou all the time with fever and delirium. 'Tis now the first time that thou hast had a quiet sleep. Hold thy tongue, if thou wilt not bring woe upon thy head."
But Tarass still endeavoured to gather his thoughts, and to recollect the past. "But how is it? I was quite taken and surrounded by the Poles. I had no possibility of cutting my way through the crowd?"
"Hold thy tongue, I tell thee, devil's son!" angrily cried Tovkach, as a nurse out of temper cries to a naughty child. "Of what use is it for thee to know _how_ thou didst escape? Thou _hast_ escaped, that's enough. There were men at hand who did not forsake thee; well, that is all thou needest know. We have still many nights to ride hard together. Dost thou think thou art worth no more than a common Cossack? Not so; they have set a price of two thousand ducats on thy head."
"And what of Ostap?" suddenly cried Tarass, endeavouring to rise, for he remembered all at once how Ostap had been caught and bound before his eyes, and how he must now be in the hands of the Poles. And grief rushed into his old head. He tore the bandages from his wounds, threw them far away, and wished to say something aloud; but his mind began to wander. Fever and delirium once more fell on him, and he ejaculated raving sentences without any sense or connection. Meanwhile his faithful comrade stood before him, grumbling and uttering without interruption, scolding words, and gruff reproaches. At last he took hold of his feet and hands, swaddled him round like a baby, set all the bandages in order, packed him up in an ox-hide? bound him round with sheets of bark, and then, tying him with a rope to his saddle, once more galloped away.