Vera did not attempt to guess. "You are always getting hurt," she laughed. "Send me word by a soldier if you are clumsy enough to stand in the way of a French bullet." Vera laughed though she spoke with a full heart.
In consequence of this conversation, Sasha actually wrote Vera's address upon a slip of paper which he gave to a trooper in his regiment, bidding him keep an eye upon him and ride back to Moscow quickly, if he should fall, in order to tell the lady named in the written address of what had occurred. When, later in the day, Sasha's regiment received orders to charge from their cover a body of French foot-guards, the trooper to whose care Sasha had entrusted his slip of paper and who rode close at Sasha's stirrup saw a notable sight.
In the mélée he heard a French officer call gaily to the Count Maximof:--
"Hi," he cried, "_mon ami_, Maximof, here am I, let us finish that old matter".
Sasha had turned his horse, and with an exclamation made straight for the Frenchman, at whom he lunged and struck with his sabre. But the Frenchman skilfully dodged his blows, and watching his opportunity planted a thrust of his bayonet which entered the Count's body and tumbled him off his horse senseless.
"Aha!" the Frenchman cried, "that was more than I meant; what will the fair Vera say!" Almost at the same moment a Russian trooper rode this French officer down, and the messenger himself dealt him a whack with his sword that half severed his left arm at the shoulder.
After this the stress of battle separated the trooper from these two fallen men, but when the fight was done and the Frenchmen had gone forward, pursued by the Russian mounted men, the trooper, whose name was Markof, returned to the spot to see how the Count fared. Here he found the Frenchman actually giving Maximof a drink from his flask, talking to him the while in French and laughing; Maximof's eyes were open, but he breathed with difficulty.
Markof spoke to him, saying he would now ride back to the address given upon his paper, which name and address he read aloud in order to make sure he had it right.
"Ah, ah!" said the Frenchman, "Vera Demidof--good--go back and tell her, my friend, that there are two who wish to see her before they die. _Sapristi_, we are in luck, Maximof, both of us!"