Among the spectators were our friend Nikíta, the old sailor’s widow, with whom he had again made friends, and her ten-year-old daughter.

“O Lord God! Holy Mary, Mother of God!” said the old woman, sighing, as she looked at the bombs that kept flying across from side to side like balls of fire; “what horrors! what horrors! Ah, ah! oh, oh! Even at the first bandagement it wasn’t like that. Look now, where the cursed thing has burst, just over our house in the suburb.”

“No, that’s further, they keep tumbling into Aunt Irena’s garden,” said the girl.