rt, are you?" I said, bending down to him,

He got up and to my surprise seemed quite composed. He was rubbing his
eyes as though he had waked from sleep.

"Not at all," he answered in his shrill little voice. "No.... What a
noise! Did you hear it, Ivan Andreievitch?"

Did I hear it? A ridiculous question!

"But I assure you I was not alarmed," he said eagerly, turning round
to the young officer, who was rather red in the face but otherwise
unruffled. "The first time that one has been so close to me. What a
noise!"

Trenchard searched in his pockets for something.

"What is it?" I asked.

"My handkerchief!" he answered. "So dusty after that. It's in my
eyes!"

He tumbled on to the ground a large clasp pocket-knife, a hunk of
black bread, a cigarette-case and some old letters. "I had one," he
muttered anxiously. "Somewhere, I know...."

I heard the Colonel's voice again. "No one touched! There's some more
of their precious ammunition wasted.... What about your Ekaterina,
Piotr Ivanovitch--Ho, ho, ho!... Here, _golubchik_, the telephone!...
Hullo! Hullo!"

For myself I had the irritation that one might feel had a boy thrown a
stone over the wall, broken a window and run away. Moreover, I felt
that again I had missed--IT. Always round the corner, always just out
of sight, always mocking one's clumsy pursuit. And still, even now, I
felt no excitement, no curiosity. My feet had not yet touched the
enchanted ground....

The trench had at once slipped back into its earlier composure. The
dusk was now creeping down the hill; with every stir of the breeze
more stars were blown into the sky; the oak was all black now like a
friendly shadow protecting me.

"There'll be no more for a while," said the Colonel. He was right.
There was stillness; no battery, however distant, no pitter-patter of
rifle fire, no chattering report of the machine guns.

Men began to cross the yard, slowly, without caution. The dusk caught
us so that I could not see the Colonel's face; a stream that cut the
field, hidden in the day, was now suddenly revealed by a grinning
careless moon.

Then a soldier crossed the yard to us, told us that Dr. Semyonov
wished us to start and had sent us a guide; the wagons were ready.

At that instant, whence I know not, for the first time that day,
excitement leapt upon me.

Events had hitherto passed before me like the shadowed film of a
cinematograph; it had been as though some one had given me glimp