A terrible fear suddenly seized Volodia. It seemed to him that a shell was going to fall on him, and that a piece would surely strike him on the head. The moist darkness, the sinister sounds, the constant noise of the wrathful waves, all seemed to urge him to take not another step, and to tell him that no good awaited him there; that his foot would never touch the solid earth on the other side of the bay; that he would do well to turn back, to flee as quickly as possible this terrible place where death reigns. “Who knows? Perhaps it is too late. My lot is fixed.” He said this to himself, trembling at the thought, and also on account of the water which was running into his boots. He sighed deeply, and kept away from his brother a little. “My God! shall I really be killed--I? Oh, my God, have mercy on me!” he murmured, making the sign of the cross. “Now we will push on, Volodia,” said his companion, when their carriage had rejoined them. “Did you see the shell?” Farther on they met more wagons carrying wounded men and gabions. One of them, filled with furniture, was driven by a woman. On the other side no one stopped their passage. Instinctively hugging the wall of the Nicholas battery the two brothers silently went along it, with ears attentive to the noise of the shells which exploded over their heads and to the roar of the pieces thrown down from above; and at last they reached the part of the battery where the holy image was placed. There they learned that the Fifth Light Artillery Regiment, which Volodia was to join, was at Korabelnaïa. They consequently made up their minds in spite of the danger to go and sleep in the fifth bastion, and to go from there to their battery on the next day. Passing through the narrow passage, stepping over the soldiers who were sleeping along the wall, they at last reached the hospital. X. Entering the first room, filled with beds on which the wounded were lying, they were struck by the heavy and nauseating odor which is peculiar to hospitals. Two Sisters of Charity came to meet them. One of them, about fifty years old, had a stern face; she held in her hands a bundle of bandages and lint, and was giving orders to a very young assistant-surgeon who was following her. The other, a pretty girl of twenty, had a blond, pale, and delicate face. She appeared particularly gentle and timid under her little white cap; she followed her companion with her hands in her apron-pockets, and it could be seen that she was afraid of stopping behind. Koseltzoff asked them to show him Martzeff, who had lost a leg the day before. “Of the P---- regiment?” asked the elder of the two sisters. “Are you a relative?” “No, a comrade.” “Show them the way,” she said in French to the younger sister, and left them, accompanied by the assistant-surgeon, to go to a wounded man.