Having landed, the Cossacks rushed into the crowd and looked for familiar Ukrainian women and girls, Polonyankas, whom the Turks had taken as their wives and concubines; It may seem strange that the Cossacks, who did not tolerate any womanism, were looking for Ukrainian women: the point is that all captive men, with the exception of those who converted to Islam, i.e. the Mohammedan lie ("opturkish", as the Cossacks put it), worked either in the galleys, or in the city as slaves, and therefore could not provide assistance to the Cossacks. The women were free and, of course, they knew or could find out everything that the Cossacks needed to find out: how many troops were in the city, what kind of military operations, which had been destroyed, and by what forces the fortress and city gates were being guarded, whether there was oil in the city wall for a secret entrance, etc.
Having gathered the necessary troops, having agreed, if necessary, to give various signals from the city and the like, the “shiigs” promptly departed from the city to the sea, where, joining their comrades who were waiting for them, they talked about everything they had learned in the city, after which a plan for the attack was drawn up.
This attack was usually carried out simultaneously both on the city and the city itself, and on the ships standing in the harbor (pier). With the onset of darkness, the Cossacks swam to the shore, landed not far from the city, left a small guard near the boats, and they themselves carefully, in complete order and silence, crept up to the walls of the city.
Guttural speech of the Turks, “slave cant” (iЪen),
[fragment illegible in the scan of the first edition]
the cries of traders, drovers, the braying of camels and donkeys. the knocking and clanging of the iron gradually fell silent. The beautiful city with flat roofs of houses and slender minarets of mosques (churches) fell asleep. The bright stars lit up in the heights of the sky and under the silvery light of the emerging month the walls of fancy palaces and houses shone brightly among the gardens and black shadows. On the tops of the minarets, from where the muezzin shouted mournfully and protractedly for the last time, golden crescents clearly appeared in the dark sky. Somewhere a dog barked once, then again, and everything became quiet, only the dull sound of the surf could be heard from the sea, drowning out the steps of the silently moving Cossacks.
These gloomy cities are stfn. The Cossacks are quietly moving forward; The dog barked three times in a row: that was a signal... A bittern shouted in the distance; Some of the Cossacks, with bundles of tarred tow in their hands, cleared away and quickly disappeared into the darkness: they had to go around the city and, at a signal, set fire to all the buildings near the city in order to clear the city during the upcoming massacre. The dog barked again, and the bittern answered again. The gate in one stfn opened at that very moment. Lights began to blink around the city. The sleepy Turkish guard was killed before he could grab his weapon; At once the gate doors were knocked down, and the Cossacks rushed into the city. - “To work, kids, to the armor!” the Koshevoy exclaimed in a thunderous voice. “For Viru and Sich-mati!” the “Ditki” responded with a roar. Tall Cossacks flashed along the sleepy streets of the city, and as soon as they appeared, a bright flame of fire immediately broke out. Set on fire from all sides, the city was burning... Shouts of “Alla! - Strike! - Allah, Abker”, the roar of the fire. “The sound of screaming, the screams of the wounded and dying, the crash of collapsing buildings, the crying of women and civilians—increased the striking impression of this picture of Cossack vengeance.