the confusion of the moment, he passed
through the village, and escaped unnoticed into a neighbouring thicket,
whence he succeeded in retiring altogether beyond the range of the
assailed position.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

IN WHICH SOME DESPERATE ENTERPRISES ARE UNDERTAKEN.

At this time the Russians had taken up a strong position in the Balkan
mountain range, and entrenched themselves within a short distance of the
enemy.

After a night and a day of aimless wandering, Jacob Lancey found himself
at last in a rocky defile between the hostile lines. How he got there
he could not tell, but there he was, in a position of imminent danger,
with the sentinels of the belligerent armies on either side of him.

Evening was setting in when he made this discovery, and recoiled,
happily without having been seen, into a narrow rocky place where the
fast-failing light had already deepened into gloom. A cold white fog
was slowly creeping up from the valleys and covering the hill-sides.

It is in such places and circumstances that men conceive and execute
designs, which, according to their nature, are deeds of recklessness or
of heroism. Two such ventures were afoot that night.

In the Russian camp preparations were being made for a night attack on a
village in possession of the Turks, and out of which, with a view to
future movements, it was deemed necessary to drive them. In this
village there dwelt a youth, an intimate friend of Dobri Petroff. The
two had played with each other in childhood, had roamed about the
country together in boyhood, and, when they reached man's estate, had
become faster friends than ever, being bound by the ties of intellectual
as well as physical sympathy. When this friend, Petko Borronow, left
Yenilik at the death of his mother, it was to take charge of the little
farm in the Balkan mountains,--the desolate home where his sister
Giuana, an invalid, and a beautiful girl, was now left in solitude.

In his capacity of scout, Petroff was always in the neighbourhood of
headquarters, and was frequently summoned to the tent of the general
commanding, to be interrogated. Thus he chanced to overhear occasional
remarks and hints which, when pieced together by his intelligent mind,
showed him pretty clearly what was pending.

He sat by the camp-fire that night, buried in meditation, with a series
of troubled wrinkles on a brow that was usually open and unclouded.
Many a time did he light his pipe and