The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-09-25


 sober men and workers, even to the minu- test detail of warlike preparation. They marched forth, great and determined army when their volunteers had joined them, straight for the border of Poland.
 All southwest Poland became panic stricken. Across the land from village to village and from town to town ran the cry of terror, "The Zaporozhti The Zaporozhtii" All who could fled with what they could carry with them to the for tified towns. Such as could not flee were killed or made captive. Churches and convents were burned. The invasion was marked by all the cruelties and atroci- ties which, in later days in other lands, marked the outbreak of the fiercer tribes of red Indians. The Cossacks marched with long OK trains carrying their im- pedmenta, and yet with marvellous rapid ity, and exhibited marvellous mobility, appearing In places where they were least expected and striking hard when they struck. Small armies sent against them by the Polish government were de- feated and cities were taken and sacked. It was red wave of savage warfare and on its topmost crest rode, elated with success and infiamed by blood and war, Taras Bulba and his two sons. III fared the Polish regiment into which Taras charged with his Ostap and An drii-they would cut a lane through it. woe betide the peasant or the noble who sought mercy at their hands.
 Rumors said that in the city of Dub no there were many wealthy inhab- itants and much treasure. Thither, then, the Cossack army, marched, appeared before the city. and. failing to take it by storm, sat down to besiege 1t. The inhabitants, knowing what to expect if they surrendered, resolved to defend the place to the last extremity, and to die in their streets and squares rather than give themselves and their families up to the invaders. A high, earthen wall surrounded the city. and there was behind it a garrison strong enough, it was hoped, to hold the enemy at bay with the aid of the citizens until re- lief should arrive. The Zaporozhians were not fond of having to do with for tified places; sieges were not in their line. The discipline which had been so strict on the march became relaxed as the days of watching before the city passed For lack of something better to do the Cossacks devastated the sur rounding country, which bore upon it's surface a crop of unusual plenty that year.
 Mo raj n the Qt en town, and famine began to walk abroad in It's streets and to dwell in its houses. In palace and hovel, in the public squares and on the streets, men and women and children were dying of hunger One night as Andrli lay upon his back in a cart looking up at the stars and thinking of his romance of Kief. he was startled to see strange form suddenly bend over him. It was the withered, emaciated form of an aged Tartar woman, and she made a signal to him of silence. "Do you not know mel" she asked. Look well, see as clearly as you can in this dim light i; remember Kiel!" Then he remembered this strange visitor. It was the Tar tar slave woman, the servant who had been called in by the Yolvode's daughter on the night when he had made his clandestine visit to the ob- feet of his love-it seemed so long ago now. Hastily she told him that the "pannochka" was alive, that her father was now voivode of Dubno and that she was even then in the be- sieged city with him. But she was starving; she could not survive anoth- CT day without food. Sue had seen