But such was not Volodia’s lot. While he was listening to a tale that
Vassina was relating, the alarm cry, “The French are coming!” made his
blood rush immediately back to his heart; he felt his cheeks pale and
turn cold, and he remained a second stupefied. Then looking around, he
saw the soldiers button their coats and glide out one after the other,
and he heard one of them, Melnikoff, probably, say, in a joking way,
“Come, children, let’s offer him bread and salt.”
Volodia and Vlang, who did not leave his heels, went out together and
ran to the battery. On one side as well as on the other the artillery
had ceased firing. The despicable and cynical cowardice of the yunker
still more than the coolness of the soldiers had the effect of restoring
his courage.
“Am I like him?” he thought, rushing quickly towards the parapet, near
which the mortars were placed. From there he distinctly saw the French
dash across the space, free from every obstacle, and run straight
towards him. Their bayonets, sparkling in the sun, were moving in the
nearest trenches. A small, square-shouldered Zouave ran ahead of the
others, sabre in hand, leaping over the ditches. “Grape!” shouted
Volodia, throwing himself down from the parapet. But the soldiers had
already thought of it, and the metallic noise of the grape, thrown first
by one mortar and then by the other, thundered over his head. “First!
second!” he ordered, running across between the two mortars, completely
forgetting the danger. Shouts and the musket reports of the battalion
charged with the defence of the battery were heard on one side, and
suddenly on the left arose a desperate clamor, repeated by many voices:
“They are coming in our rear!” and Volodia, turning around, saw a score
of Frenchmen. One of them, a fine man with a black beard, ran towards
him, and halting ten paces from the battery, fired at him point-blank
and went on. Volodia, petrified, could not believe his eyes. In front of
him, on the rampart, were blue uniforms, and two Frenchmen who were
spiking a cannon. With the exception of Melnikoff, killed by a bullet at
his side, and Vlang, who with downcast eyes, and face inflamed by fury,
was brandishing a hand-spike, no one was left.
“Follow me, Vladimir Semenovitch! follow me!” shouted Vlang, in a
despairing tone, defending himself with the lever from the French who
came behind him. The yunker’s menacing look, and the blow which he
struck two of them, made them halt.
“Follow me, Vladimir Semenovitch!--What are you waiting for? Fly!” and
he threw himself into the trench, from which our infantry were firing on
the enemy. He immediately came out of it, however, to see what had
become of his beloved lieutenant. A shapeless thing, clothed in a gray
overcoat, lay, face to earth, on the spot where Volodia stood, and the
whole place was filled by the French, who were firing at our men.