"It cannot be that they have taken it!" said the mounted officer.
"By Heavens, there's the standard! Look, look!" said the other, sighing and abandoning the glass. "The French standard on the Malakoff!"
The elder Kozeltzoff, who had succeeded in winning back his money and losing it all again that night, including even the gold pieces which were sewed into his cuffs, had fallen, just before daybreak, into a heavy, unhealthy, but profound slumber, in the fortified barracks of the fifth battalion, when the fateful cry, repeated by various voices, rang out:--
"Why are you sleeping, Mikhaïl Semyónitch! There's an assault!" a voice shouted to him.
"That is probably some school-boy," he said, opening his eyes, but putting no faith in it.
But all at once he caught sight of an officer running aimlessly from one corner to the other, with such a pale face that he understood it all. The thought that he might be taken for a coward, who did not wish to go out to his company at a critical moment, struck him with terrible force. He ran to his corps at the top of his speed. Firing had ceased from the heavy guns; but the crash of musketry was at its height. The bullets whistled, not singly like rifle-balls, but in swarms, like a flock of birds in autumn, flying past overhead. The entire spot on which his battalion had stood the night before was veiled in smoke, and the shouts and cries of the enemy were audible. Soldiers, both wounded and unwounded, met him in throngs. After running thirty paces further, he caught sight of his company, which was hugging the wall.
"They have captured Schwartz," said a young officer. "All is lost!"
"Nonsense!" said he, angrily, grasping his blunt little iron sword, and he began to shout:--
His voice was strong and ringing; it roused even Kozeltzoff himself. He ran forward along the traverse; fifty soldiers rushed after him, shouting as they went. From the traverse he ran out upon an open square. The bullets fell literally like hail. Two struck him,--but where, and what they did, whether they bruised or wounded him, he had not the time to decide.
In front, he could already see blue uniforms and red trousers, and could hear shouts which were not Russian; one Frenchman was standing on the breastworks, waving his cap, and shouting something. Kozeltzoff was convinced that he was about to be killed; this gave him courage.