These had proved insufficient:
retreat, from the exhausted state of their horses and
camels, no less than from the prodigious encumbrances
of their live stock, was absolutely out of the question:
quarter was disdained on the one side, and would not 20
have been granted on the other: and thus it had happened
that the setting sun of that one day (the thirteenth from
the first opening of the revolt) threw his parting rays upon
the final agonies of an ancient _ouloss_, stretched upon a
bloody field, who on that day's dawning had held and 25
styled themselves an independent nation.
Universal consternation was diffused through the wide
borders of the Khan's encampment by this disastrous
intelligence, not so much on account of the numbers
slain, or the total extinction of a powerful ally, as because 30
the position of the Cossack force was likely to put
to hazard the future advances of the Kalmucks, or at
least to retard and hold them in check until the heavier
columns of the Russian army should arrive upon their
flanks. The siege of Koulagina was instantly raised;
and that signal, so fatal to the happiness of the women
and their children, once again resounded through the
tents--the signal for flight, and this time for a flight
more rapid than ever. About 150 miles ahead of their 5
present position, there arose a tract of hilly country,
forming a sort of margin to the vast, sealike expanse of
champaign savannas, steppes, and occasionally of sandy
deserts, which stretched away on each side of this margin
both eastwards and westwards.
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