success: "I would load the gun with my head, so glad would I be to kill that bragger: it is not worth while to waste grape upon one man--grape--look out! a cannon-ball will reach the guilty!" So saying, he screwed up the quoin and levelled the gun, looking through the sight; and having exactly calculated the moment when the horseman would ride through the line of aim, he stepped aside and ordered the fatal fire. For some moments the smoke enveloped the battery in darkness: when it floated away the frightened horse was dragging the blood-stained corpse of his rider, with the foot entangled in the stirrup. "Hit--killed!" was shouted from all the trenches; and the young artillery officer, taking off his cap, piously crossed himself, and with a joyous face jumped down from the battery to seize the prey which he had earned. He soon succeeded in catching by the reins the horse of the slain Tcherkéss, for he was dragging the body sideways on the ground. The unfortunate man had his arm torn off close to the shoulder; but he still breathed, groaned, and struggled. Pity touched the good-natured youth: he called some soldiers, and ordered them to carry the wounded man carefully into the trench, sent for the surgeon, and had the operation performed before his eyes. At night, when all was quiet, the artilleryman sat by the side of his dying prisoner, and watched him with interest by the dim light of the lantern. The serpent-marks of sorrow, graven on his cheek by tears, the wrinkles on his forehead, dug, not by years but passions, and bloody scratches, disfigured his handsome face; and in it was painted something more torturing than pain, more terrible than death. The artilleryman could not restrain an involuntary shudder. The prisoner sighed heavily, and having, with difficulty, raised his hand to his forehead, opened his heavy eyelids, muttering to himself in unintelligible sounds, unconnected words.... "Blood," he cried, examining his hand ... "always blood! why have they put _his_ bloody shirt upon me? Already, without that, I swim in blood.... Why do I not drown in it?... How cold the blood is to-day!... Once it used to scald me, and this is no better! In the world it is stifling, in the gave so cold.... 'Tis dreadful to be a corpse. Fool that I am, I sought death. O, let me live but for one little day--one little hour, to live!..." "What? Why have I hidden another in the grave, _whisperest thou_? Learn thyself what it is to die!..." A convulsive paroxysm interrupted his raving, an unspeakably dreadful groan burst from the sufferer, and he fell into a painful lethargy, in which the soul lives only to suffer.