This game was inspiriting; they won at it many costly sets of horse-trappings and valuable weapons.

In a month the scarcely fledged birds attained their full growth, were completely transformed, and became men; their features, in which hitherto a trace of youthful softness had been visible, grew strong and grim.

But it was pleasant to old Taras to see his sons among the foremost.

It seemed as though Ostap were designed by nature for the game of war and the difficult science of command.

Never once losing his head or becoming confused under any circumstances, he could, with a cool audacity almost supernatural in a youth of two-and-twenty, in an instant gauge the danger and the whole scope of the matter, could at once devise a means of escaping, but of escaping only that he might the more surely conquer.
His movements now began to be marked by the assurance which comes from experience, and in them could be detected the germ of the future leader.
His person strengthened, and his bearing grew majestically leonine.
"What a fine leader he will make one of these days!" said old Taras.