You have evidently forgotten that those of our men captured by the Lyakhs will remain prisoners.

You evidently wish that we should not heed the first holy law of comradeship; that we should leave our brethren to be flayed alive, or carried about through the towns and villages after their Cossack bodies have been quartered, as was done with the hetman and the bravest Russian warriors in the Ukraine.

Have the enemy not desecrated the holy things sufficiently without that?
What are we?
I ask you all what sort of a Cossack is he who would desert his comrade in misfortune, and let him perish like a dog in a foreign land?
If it has come to such a pass that no one has any confidence in Cossack honour, permitting men to spit upon his grey moustache, and upbraid him with offensive words, then let no one blame me; I will remain here alone." All the Zaporozhtzi who were there wavered.
"And have you forgotten, brave comrades," said the Koschevoi, "that the Tatars also have comrades of ours in their hands; that if we do not rescue them now their lives will be sacrificed in eternal imprisonment among the infidels, which is worse than the most cruel death?
Have you forgotten that they now hold all our treasure, won by Christian blood ?" The Cossacks reflected, not knowing what to say.

None of them wished to deserve ill repute.

Then there stepped out in front of them the oldest in years of all the Zaporozhian army, Kasyan Bovdug.