In fact, I had Alexander's letter in my pocket, where he spoke of Nicholas' splendid business-like arrangement, when I read in all the papers a short but terrible telegram: "Hadji Ghiray is killed at Zaitcher"--it was Nicholas Kiréeff. He had joined {32} the Serbians under an assumed name, as we later discovered. My horror at this news was indescribable. I could not believe it. But it was soon followed by a wire from Alexander which said: "The Emperor has sent for me and informed me of our brother's death. He allows me to go to you at once, and we will go to see Mother in Italy. She must be now at Lucca, and probably knows nothing as yet of our misfortune." I shall hope to be forgiven for quoting Kinglake's account of my brother's sacrifice. It was characteristically Russian in its Quixotism: "The young Nichol ... Kiréeff was a noble, and being by nature a man of an enthusiastic disposition, with the romantic example before him in the life of his father, he had accustomed himself to the idea of self-sacrifice. Upon the outbreak of Prince Milan's insurrection, he went off to Servia with the design of acting simply under the banner of the Red Cross, and had already entered upon his humane task, when he found himself called upon by General Tchernaieff to accept the command of what we may call a brigade--a force of some five thousand infantry, consisting of volunteers and militiamen, supported, it seems, by five guns; and before long, he not only had to take his brigade into action, but to use it as the means of assailing an entrenched position at Rakovitz. Young Kiréeff very well understood that the irregular force entrusted to him was far from being one that could be commanded in the hour of battle by taking a look with a field-glass and uttering a few words to an aide-de-camp; so {33} he determined to carry forward his men by the simple and primitive expedient of personally advancing in front of them. He was a man of great stature, with extraordinary beauty of features, and, whether owing to the midsummer heat, or from any wild, martyr-like, or dare-devil impulse, he chose, as he had done from the first, to be clothed altogether in white. Whilst advancing in front of his troops against the Turkish battery he was struck--first by a shot passing through his left arm, then presently by another one which struck him in the neck, and then again by yet another one which shattered his right hand and forced him to drop his sword; but, despite all these wounds, he was still continuing his resolute advance, when a fourth shot passed through his lungs, and brought him, at length, to the ground, yet did not prevent him from uttering--although with great effort--the cry of 'Forward! Forward!' A fifth shot, however, fired low, passed through the fallen chief's heart and quenched his gallant spirit. The brigade he had commanded fell back, and his body--vainly asked for soon afterwards by General Tchernaieff--remained in the hands