When the clock struck six, the officers began to join their companies. The regiment had not to be assembled and in line before 10 a.m., but, with the exception of Stelikovski, not one of the Captains thought of letting their poor wearied soldiers have their proper sleep and gain strength for the toils awaiting them that day. On the contrary, never had their fussiness and zeal been greater than on this morning. The air was thick with oaths, threats, and insults; ear-boxing, slaps on the mouth, kicks, and blows with the fist rained down, at each slightest blunder, on the miserable, utterly exhausted soldiers. At 9 a.m. the companies marched to the parade-ground, about five hundred paces in front of the camp. Sixteen outposts, provided with small, multi-coloured flags for signalling, were stationed in an absolutely straight line about half a verst long, so as to mark out, with mathematical accuracy, the points where each company's right wing should be placed at the parade past the Brigadier-General. Lieutenant Kováko, who had been allotted this highly important task, was, of course, one of the heroes of the day, and, conscious of this, he galloped, like a madman--red, perspiring, and with his cap on his neck--backwards and forwards along the line, shouting and swearing, and also belabouring with his sabre the ribs of his lean white charger. The poor beast, grown grey with age and having a cataract in its right eye, waved its short tail convulsively. Yes, on Lieutenant Kováko and his outposts depended the whole regiment's weal and woe, for it was he who bore the awful responsibility of the sixteen companies' respective "gaps" and "dressing." Precisely at ten minutes to 10 a.m., the 5th Company marched out of camp. With brisk, long, measured steps, that made the earth tremble, these hundred men marched past all the other companies and took their place in the line. They formed a splendid, select corps; lithe, muscular figures with straight backs and brave bearing, clean, shining faces, and the little peakless cap tipped coquettishly over the right ear. Captain Stelikovski--a little thin man, displaying himself in tremendously wide breeches--carelessly promenaded, without troubling himself in the least about the time his troops kept when marching, five paces on the side of the right flank, peering amusedly, and now and then shaking his head whimsically now to the right, now to the left, as though to control the troops' "dressing" and attention. Colonel Liech, the commander of the battalion, who, like the rest of the officers, had been, ever since dawn, in a state of examination-fever and nervous irritability, rushed up to Stelikovski with furious upbraidings for having "come too late." The latter slowly and coolly took out his watch, glanced at it, and replied in a dry, almost contemptuous tone: