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 have been granted
on the other; and thus it had happened that the setting sun of that one
day (the 13th 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 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 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.
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