The rearguard was still within the fortress. I had great difficulty in making my way across the bridge among the guns, ammunition wagons, the carts of the different companies, and the officers noisily giving orders.
Once outside the fortress gates, I passed at a trot the troops, who, stretched out over nearly three-quarters of a mile, were moving silently on through the darkness, and I overtook the general.
As I rode past the guns drawn out in single file, and the officers who rode between the guns, I was hurt, as by a discord in the quiet and solemn harmony, by the German accents of a voice shouting, “You devil, a linstock!” and the voice of a soldier hurriedly calling, “Shevchenko, the lieutenant wants a light!”
The greater part of the sky was now overcast with long strips of dark grey clouds; only here and there a few stars twinkled dimly among them.
The moon had already sunk behind the near horizon of the black hills, visible to the right, and threw a faint trembling light on their peaks in sharp contrast to the impenetrable darkness which enveloped their base.
The air was so warm and still that it seemed as if not one blade of grass, not one cloudlet, were moving.
It was so dark that even objects close at hand could not be distinguished. On the sides of the road I seemed to see now rocks, now animals, now some strange kind of men, and I discovered that they were merely bushes only when I heard them rustle, or felt the dew with which they were sprinkled. In front of me I saw a dense heaving wall, followed by some dark moving spots: these were the cavalry vanguard, and the general with his suite. Another similar dark mass, only lower, moved beside us—that was the infantry.
The silence that reigned over the whole division was so great that all the mingling sounds of night, with their mysterious charm, were distinctly