ng the air with
mad outcries and disorderly shooting. It was at that very time that
the second platoon of the third squad strayed from its regiment and
its officers. Seventeen in all, instinctively keeping together, they
found themselves outside of the battle-field in a narrow loamy ravine
overgrown with dwarfish trees. The ravine was deep and had washed-out
clay slopes. High above it stretched a muddy, uneven strip of grey
sky, which poured an unceasing rain upon the soaked red clay, upon the
small wet birch trees, and the group of soldiers, who had lost their
way and driven by inertia were hurrying further downward.

The soldiers, all reservists, were thick-set, bearded and pock-marked
peasants from the governments of Kostroma and Novgorod and among them,
was a dark little Jew, Hershel Mak, who alone thought and planned for
the rest of them. All these country people taken right from the plough
were unable to grasp how it all happened, and were not even sure
whether anything had happened at all. They could not tell whether
there was a battle or not, whether it was good or bad to be left
without officers in this confounded ravine, and what would come of it
all. Only Hershel Mak understood that there was a battle, that the
front ranks came right under the crossfire of the machine-guns, that a
panic resulted and that the Ashkadar regiment was knocked off its
feet by a crowd of runaways. He knew that the regiment was broken up
without a shot and that now they were left to their own fate, in a
place which might well be within the very centre of the enemy's
position. Hershel Mak was well aware of the fact that for the present
no one would or could worry about them and that they must alone
disentangle themselves from this mess,--and his versatile mind began
at once to work to the utmost of its ability.

The rain was rushing in murmuring streams down the slopes of the
ravine and along its bottom, and the noise of the water drowned the
crackling of the machine-guns and the thundering of the cannon. The
ravine extended further down, and apparently into the forest, for the
trees were becoming thicker, and on the ground a deep layer of
half-decayed leaves was mingled with the clay. Once or twice, a heavy
buzzing was heard overhead, and the soldiers involuntarily lifted
their eyes, but there was no aeroplane in sight, and one could not
tell whether it was the enemy or not.

Hershel Mak was walking behind the others, and was deep