"Muttonhead! Shall I send one on whose face are the imprints of all the Devil's ten fingers? Pick out the youngest, the handsomest and the stupidist of the sotnia and send him over. The kind that believes anything anybody tells him. Then they over there will believe him. And what we are going to do nobody but you and I will know. Well, have you any such 'steed of God?'" The sotnik strikes his body with both hands, smiles and nods. "There is a Raskolnik here." "Is that so, Little Brother?" Both burst into violent peals of laughter as if overcome by the humor of the situation. III--THE PLOT THAT FAILED They would send the Raskolnik--the sectarian who was prepared to die at any moment rather than sin in any particular against the teachings of Jesus, who even in war abhorred attacking the enemy and wanted only to defend himself--one of these religious enthusiasts who had to be driven into military service with a whip. What a joke for these two orthodox Slavs to load upon this "steed of God" the bloodguilt of their stratagem! They laugh--laugh till their eyes fill with water. Half an hour later a young cavalryman trots away into the murky dawn. The fresh wind of the steppe whistles about his ears. Over his head flutters the little white flag, which they have fastened to the top of his lance. "How is it that he has found so much favor in the eyes of his commander as to be sent as a parlamentaire to the enemy?" But he puzzles little about that. He is glad that the poor creatures of God who have been driven like mice out of their holes will be allowed to go to-morrow over into the camp of their friends. He must be a real man, the colonel, even if so far the soldiers have found little good in him. In the east it is getting lighter. Already a silvery wave spreads over the plain from the edge of the horizon. By the time he arrives at the first entrenchment it will be so light that the enemy can easily see the flag on his lance. "It is cold," he muses. "But yet it is already spring, and where my horse steps the snow gives way. Soon the steppe will be green again, just as it will be back in Russia." And in the midst of the deep silence which surrounds him, in sight of all the horrible traces which war and death have left upon his pathway, there blossoms out of his innocent soul a pure, sweet memory--of home. He recalls the straw-covered hut, the calm and mighty waves of the distant Don, the peace of the steppe purling like a breath from heaven through the tall grasses. He was only a pious peasant's son--not a Cossack. But now they have put him as a supernumerary in a Cossack regiment, and he must go along, through all the blood, through all the horror. With a slight shudder he puts his hand upon the crucifix beneath his soldier's coat and crosses himself. "God grant me His grace!" On the other side they had caught sight of him. A sentinel advanced to meet him. Soon he stands before the Austrian officer.