casion, when, just as it was dusk, they
had gone in among the trees, having seen a Russian column moving along
the road, they were astonished at being suddenly seized, gagged, and
carried off through the wood. So suddenly had this been done, that
they had time neither to cry nor struggle.

After being carried some distance, they were thrown down on the
ground, and the men who had carried them hurried away. Just as they
did so there was a sudden outburst of musketry, mingled with loud
yells and shouts; then, after a moment's pause, came the rattle of a
rolling musketry fire. The first, Jack judged to be the fire of
insurgents upon the column; the second, that of the troops. For a
while the din of battle went on. Sharp ringing volleys, heavy
irregular firing, the fierce, wild shouts of the insurgents, and
occasionally the hoarse hurrah of Russian soldiery.

Presently the sounds grew fainter, and the lads judged by the
direction that the Russian column was falling back in retreat. Ere
long the sounds of firing ceased altogether, and in scattered knots of
three and four, men came through the wood to the wide open space in
which the midshipmen were lying bound. No attention was paid to them
for some time, until a large body of men were collected. Then the lads
were suddenly raised and carried to a large fire which was now-blazing
in the centre of the clearing. Here the gags were taken from their
mouths, and the cords unbound, and they saw confronting them a young
man evidently by his dress and bearing a person of rank and authority,
and, as they judged by the attitude of those standing round, the
leader of the insurgent band.

"Where do you come from, and what are you doing here?" he asked in
Polish.

The boys shook their heads in token of their ignorance of the
language.

"I thought so," he said angrily in Russian. "You are spies, Russian
spies. I thought as much when the news came to me that two peasants
had entered a village shop to buy goods, but had been unable to ask
for them except by pointing to them, and had given a rouble note and
allowed the woman who served them to take her own change. You are
detected, sirs, and may prepare for the death you deserve. Hang them
at once," he said in Polish, to those standing near. "But first search
them thoroughly, and see if they are the bearers of any documents."

The lads in vain endeavored to explain, but their voices were drowned
in the execrations of the angry peasan