"My very heartiest thanks to the Captain of the 5th Company. Where are you, Captain? Oh, there you are!" The General, a little theatrically, took off his cap with both hands and bared his powerfully shaped bald head, whilst making a profound bow to Stelikovski. "Once more I thank you, and it is a pleasure for me to shake you by the hand. If God should ordain that this corps is to fight under my command, remember, Captain, that the first dangerous task belongs to you. And now, gentlemen, good-bye. Your work for the day is finished, and it will be a pleasure for me to see you again, but under different and more pleasing circumstances. Make way for my horse now." Colonel Shulgovich stepped out of the circle. "Your Excellency, in the officers' name, I invite you respectfully to dine at our mess. We shall be----" "No, I see no reason for that," interrupted the General dryly. "I thank you, as I am in duty bound to do, but I am invited to Count Liedochovski's." The officers cleared a way, and the General galloped off to the place where the regiment was awaiting the officers' return. "I thank you, my lads," he shouted lustily and kindly to the soldiers. "I give you two days' leave. And now, off with you to your tents. Quick march, hurrah!" It was just as if he had, by this last brief shout, turned the whole regiment topsy-turvy. With a deafening yell of delight, fifteen hundred men dispersed, in an instant, in all directions, and the ground shook beneath the feet of the fugitives. * * * * * Romashov separated himself from the other officers, who returned, in groups, to the town, and took a long circuit through the camp. He felt just then like a banned, excommunicated fugitive; like an unworthy member expelled from the circle of his comrades--nay, even like a creature beyond the pale of humanity, in soul and body stunted and despised. When he at length found himself behind the camp, near his own mess, he heard a few cries of sudden but restrained rage. He stood an instant and saw how his ensign, Rynda--a small, red-faced, powerful fellow--was, with frightful invectives and objurgations, belabouring with his fists Khliabnikov's nose and cheeks. In the poor victim's almost bestially dull eyes one could see an indescribable terror, and, at every blow, Khliabnikov staggered now to the right, now to the left. Romashov hurried away from the spot almost at running speed. In his present state of mind, it was beyond his power to protect Khliabnikov from further ill-treatment. It seemed to Romashov as if this wretched soldier's fate had to-day become linked with his own. They were both, he thought, cripples, who aroused in mankind the same feeling of compassion and disgust. This similarity in their position certainly excited, on Romashov's part, an intolerable feeling of shame and disgust at himself, but also a consciousness that in this lay something singularly deep and truly human. XV