“What does this mean, old man?” he asked with a smile. “Aren’t they willing to give me a little sleep to-night? First it’s you with your cashiered friend, and then it’s Shamyl. What shall we do, answer him or not? There was nothing about this in the instructions, was there?”
“Nothing at all. There he goes again,” said I. “Two of them!”
Indeed, in the darkness, directly in front of us, flashed two fires, like two eyes; and quickly over our heads flew one cannon-ball and one heavy shell. It must have been meant for us, coming with a loud and penetrating hum. From the neighboring tents the soldiers hastened. You could hear them hawking and talking and stretching themselves.
“Hist! the fuse sings like a nightingale,” was the remark of the artillerist.
“Send for Nikita,” said the captain with his perpetually benevolent smile. “Nikita, don’t hide yourself, but listen to the mountain nightingales.”
“Well, your honor,” said Nikita, who was standing near the captain, “I have seen them — these nightingales. I am not afraid of ‘em; but here was that stranger who was here, he was drinking up your red wine. When he heard how that shot dashed by our tents, and the shell rolled by, he cowered down like some wild beast.”
“However, we must send to the commander of the artillery,” said the captain to me, in a serious tone of authority, “and ask whether we shall reply to the fire or not. It will probably be nothing at all, but still it may. Have the goodness to go and ask him. Have a horse saddled. Do it as quickly as possible, even if you take my Polkan.”
In five minutes they brought me a horse, and I galloped off to the commander of the artillery. “Look you, return on foot,” whispered the punctilious captain, “else they won’t let you through the lines.”
It was half a verst to the artillery commander’s, the whole road ran between the tents. As soon as I rode away from our fire, it became so black that I could not see even the horse’s ears, but only the watch-fires, now seeming very near, now very far off, as they gleamed into my eyes.
After I had ridden some distance, trusting to the intelligence of the horse whom I allowed free rein, I began to distinguish the white four-cornered tents and then the black tracks of the road. After a half-hour, having asked my way three times, and twice stumbled over the tent-stakes, causing each time a volley of curses from the tents, and twice been detained by the sentinels, I reached the artillery commander’s.
While I was on the way, I heard two more cannon shot in the direction of our camp; but the projectiles did not reach to the place where the headquarters were. The artillery commander ordered not to reply to the firing, the more as the enemy did not remain in the same place; and I went back, leading the horse by the bridle, making my way on foot between the infantry tents. More than once I delayed my steps, as I went by some soldier’s tent where a light was shining, and some merry-andrew was telling a story; or I listened to some educated soldier reading from some book while the whole division overflowed the tent, or hung around it, sometimes interrupting the reading with various remarks; or I simply listened to the talk about the expedition, about the fatherland, or about their chiefs.
As I came around one of the tents of the third battalion, I heard Guskof’s rough voice: he was speaking hilariously and rapidly. Young voices replied to him, not those of soldiers, but of gay gentlemen. It was evidently the tent of some yunker or sergeant-major. I stopped short.
“I’ve known him a long time,” Guskof was saying. “When I lived in Petersburg, he used to come to my house often; and I went to his. He moved in the best society.”
“Whom are you talking about?” asked the drunken voice.
“About the prince,” said Guskof. “We were relatives, you see, but, more than all, we were old friends. It’s a mighty good thing, you know, gentlemen, to have such an acquaintance. You see he’s fearfully rich. To him a hundred silver rubles is a mere bagatelle. Here, I just got a little money out of him, enough to last me till my sister sends.”
“Let’s have some.”
“Right away. — Savelitch, my dear,” said Guskof, coming to the door of the tent, “here’s ten rubles for you: go to the sutler, get two bottles of Kakhetinski. Anything else, gentlemen? What do you say?” and Guskof, with unsteady gait, with dishevelled hair, without his hat, came out of the tent. Throwing open his jacket, and thrusting his hands into the pockets of his trousers, he stood at the door of the tent. Though he was in the light, and I in darkness; I trembled with fear lest he should see me, and I went on, trying to make no noise.
“Who goes there?” shouted Guskof after me in a thoroughly drunken voice. Apparently, the cold took hold of him. “Who the devil is going off with that horse?”
I made no answer, and silently went on my way.
The End
