"That's no great odds," Jack said. "It can't be much worse stopping a few months in a Russian prison, than spending the winter upon the heights. Besides, with two of us together, we shall be as right as possible, and maybe, when your leg gets all right again, we'll manage to give them the slip."
The Russian officer in command of the party, which was about 200 strong, now made signs to the boys that they were to proceed.
Dick pointed to his leg, and the officer examined the wound. It was a slight one, the ball having passed through the calf, missing the bone.
He was, however, unable to walk. A litter was formed of two muskets with a great-coat laid between them, and Dick, being seated on this, was taken up by four men, and Jack taking his place beside him, the procession started. They halted some four miles off at a village in a valley beyond the Tchernaya.
The next day the boys were placed on ponies, and, under the escort of an officer and six troopers, conducted to Sebastopol. Here they were taken before a Russian general who, by means of an interpreter, closely examined them as to the force, condition, and position of the army.
The lads, however, evaded all questions by stating that they belonged to the fleet, and were only on duty on the heights above Balaklava, and were in entire ignorance of the force of the army and the intentions of its general. As to the fleet, they could tell nothing which the Russians did not already know.
The examination over, they were conducted to one of the casemates of Fort St. Nicholas. Here for a fortnight they remained, seeing no one except the soldier who brought them their food. The casemate was some thirty feet long by eighteen wide, and a sixty-eight-pounder stood looking out seaward. There the boys could occasionally see the ships of war of the allies as they cruised to and fro.
It was very cold, for the opening was of course unglazed. They had each a heap of straw and two blankets, and these in the daytime they used as shawls, for they had no fire, and it was freezing sharply.
Dick's leg had been examined and dressed by a surgeon upon his first arrival; but as the wound was not serious, and the surgeons were worked night and day with the enormous number of wounded at Inkerman, and in the various sorties, with which the town was crowded, he did not again come near his patient. The wound, however, healed rapidly.