The bright disk of the sun, shining through the milky-white mist, had already risen to a considerable height. The purple-grey horizon gradually widened, but though it had receded considerably, it was still as sharply outlined by a deceptive white wall of mist.
Beyond the felled wood a good-sized plain now opened in front of us. The black or milky-white or purple smoke of the fires expanded, and fantastic shapes of white mist-clouds floated above the plain. An occasional group of mounted Tartars appeared far in the distance before us, and at rare intervals the reports of our rifles and of their vintovkas and cannon were to be heard.
This, as Captain Hlopov said, was “not yet business, but only play.”
The commander of the 9th Company of Chasseurs, that formed our support, came up to our guns, pointed to three Tartars on horseback skirting the forest some 1,400 yards from us, and, with the fondness for artillery fire common among infantry officers in general, asked me to let off a ball or bomb at them.
“Do you see?” he said with a kind and persuasive smile, as he stretched his hand from behind my shoulder, “in front of those big trees there … one on a white horse and in a black Circassian cloak, and two others behind. Do you see? Could you not, please?”
“And there are three more riding at the outskirt of the forest,” said Antonov, who had astonishingly sharp eyesight, coming up to us, and hiding behind his back the pipe he had been smoking. “There, the one in front has taken his gun out of its case. They can be seen distinctly, y’r honor!”