[Sidenote: Death of Yermac.] Yermac himself perished in the rout, though he did not fall by the sword of the enemy. In all the hurry of surprise, he was not so much infected with the general panic, as to forget his usual intrepidity, which seemed to be encreased rather than abated by the danger of his present situation. After many desperate acts of heroism, he cut his way through the troops who surrounded him, and made to the banks of the Irtish[79]. Being closely pursued by a detachment of the enemy, he endeavoured to throw himself into a boat which lay near the shore; but stepping short, he fell into the water, and being incumbered with the weight of his armour, sunk instantly to the bottom[80].
[Footnote 79: Many difficulties have arisen concerning the branch of the Irtish in which Yermac was drowned; but it is now sufficiently ascertained that it was a canal, which some time before this catastrophe had been cut by order of that Cossac: Not far from the spot, where the Vagai falls into the Irtish, the latter river forms a bend of six versts; by cutting a canal in a streight line from the two extreme points of this sweep, he shortened the length of the navigation. S. R. G. p. 365-366.]
[Footnote 80: Cyprian was appointed the first archbishop of Siberia, in 1621. Upon his arrival at Tobolsk, he enquired for several of the antient followers of Yermac who were still alive; and from them he made himself acquainted with the principal circumstances attending the expedition of that Cossac, and the conquest of Siberia. Those circumstances he transmitted to writing; and these papers are the archives of the Siberian history; from which the several historians of that country have drawn their relations. Sava Yefimoff, who was himself one of Yermac's followers, is one of the most accurate historians of those times. He carries down his history to the year 1636. Fis. Sib. Ges. I. p. 430.]
His body was not long afterwards taken out of the Irtish, and exposed, by order of Kutchum Chan, to all the insults which revenge ever suggested to barbarians in the frenzy of success. But these first transports of resentment had no sooner subsided, than the Tartars testified the most pointed indignation at the ungenerous ferocity of their leader. The prowess of Yermac, his consummate valour and magnanimity, virtues which barbarians know how to prize, rose upon their recollection. They made a sudden transition from one extreme to the other: they reproached their leader for ordering, themselves for being the instruments of indignity to such venerable remains. At length their heated imaginations proceeded even to consecrate his memory: they interred his body with all the rites of Pagan superstition; and offered up sacrifices to his manes.