“Follow me, Vladímir Semyónitch! Follow me!” shouted the desperate voice of Vlang, as he brandished his handspike over the French, who were pouring in from the rear. The yunker's ferocious countenance startled them. He struck the one who was in advance, on the head; the others involuntarily paused, and Vlang continued to glare about him, and to shout in despairing accents: “Follow me, Vladímir Semyónitch! Why do you stand there? Run!” and ran towards the trenches in which lay our infantry, firing at the French. After leaping into the trench, he came out again to see what his adored ensign was doing. Something in a coat was lying prostrate where Volodya had been standing, and the whole place was filled with Frenchmen, who were firing at our men. XXVI. Vlang found his battery on the second line of defence. Out of the twenty soldiers who had been in the mortar battery, only eight survived. At nine o'clock in the evening, Vlang set out with the battery on a steamer loaded down with soldiers, cannon, horses, and wounded men, for Severnaya. There was no firing anywhere. The stars shone brilliantly in the sky, as on the preceding night; but a strong wind tossed the sea. On the first and second bastions, lightnings flashed along the earth; explosions rent the atmosphere, and illuminated strange black objects in their vicinity, and the stones which flew through the air. Something was burning near the docks, and the red glare was reflected in the water. The bridge, covered with people, was lighted up by the fire from the Nikolaevsky battery. A vast flame seemed to hang over the water, from the distant promontory of the Alexandrovsky battery, and illuminated the clouds of smoke beneath, as it rose above them; and the same tranquil, insolent, distant lights as on the preceding evening gleamed over the sea, from the hostile fleet. The fresh breeze raised billows in the bay. By the red light of the conflagrations, the masts of our sunken ships, which were settling deeper and deeper into the water, were visible. Not a sound of conversation was heard on deck; there was nothing but the regular swish of the parted waves, and the steam, the neighing and pawing of the horses, the words of command from the captain, and the groans of the wounded. Vlang, who had had nothing to eat all day, drew a bit of bread from his pocket, and began to chew it; but all at once he recalled Volodya, and burst into such loud weeping that the soldiers who were near him heard it. “See how our Vlang_a_[N] is eating his bread and crying too,” said Vasin. [N] The feminine form, as previously referred to. “Wonderful!” said another. “And see, they have fired our barracks,” he continued, with a sigh. “And how many of our brothers perished there; and the French got it for nothing!” “At all events, we have got out of it alive—thank God for that!” said Vasin. “But it's provoking, all the same!”