All look on with excitement: there is a standard;[28] another; a third; a fourth!... The enemy, not waiting the assault, fly into the forest, and open a musket fire from behind the trees. The bullets fly more and more thickly. _"Quel charmant coup d'oeil!"_ exclaimed the general as he easily rose in English fashion on his coal-black, slender-limbed little steed. "_Charmant,_" replies the major, who rolls his r's like a Frenchman, and whipping up his horse dashes after the general. "It's a genuine pleasure to carry on war in such a fine country," says he.[29] "And above all in good company," adds the general still in French, with a pleasant smile. The major bowed. At this time a cannon-ball from the enemy comes flying by with a swift, disagreeable whiz, and strikes something; immediately is heard the groan of a wounded man. This groan impresses me so painfully that the martial picture instantly loses for me all its fascination: but no one beside myself seems to be affected in the same way; the major smiles apparently with the greatest satisfaction; another officer with perfect equanimity repeats the opening words of a speech; the general looks in the opposite direction, and with the most tranquil smile says something in French. "Will you give orders to reply to their heavy guns?" asks the commander of the artillery, galloping up. "Yes, scare them a little," says the general carelessly, lighting a cigar. The battery is unlimbered, and the cannonade begins. The ground shakes under the report; the firing continues without cessation; and the smoke in which it is scarcely possible to distinguish those attending the guns, blinds the eyes. The aul is battered down. Again Colonel Khasánof dashes up, and at the general's command darts off to the aul. The war-cry is heard again, and the cavalry disappears in the cloud of its own dust. The spectacle was truly grandiose. One thing only spoiled the general impression for me as a man who had no part in the affair, and was wholly unwonted to it; and this was that there was too much of it,--the motion and the animation and the shouts. Involuntarily the comparison occurred to me of a man who in his haste would cut the air with a hatchet. [Footnote 26: _znatchki._ This word among the mountaineers has almost the signification of banner, with this single distinction, that each jigit can make a standard for himself and carry it.--AUTHOR'S NOTE.] [Footnote 27: _S Bógom,_ literally "with God," but a mere phrase.] [Footnote 28: _znatchók._] [Footnote 29: _C'est un vrai plaisir, que la guerre dans un aussi beau pays._] IX. The aul was already in the possession of our men, and not a soul of the enemy remained in it when the general with his suite, to which I had joined myself, entered it.