“Now, why is he walking with me?” thought Miháylof, on his part. “I have noticed, over and over again, that he always brings ill-luck. Here it comes, I believe, straight for us.”

After they had gone a few hundred paces they met Kaloúgin, who was walking briskly towards the lodgments, clanking his sabre. He had been ordered by the General to find out how the works were progressing there. But meeting Miháylof, he thought he could just as well, instead of going himself under such a terrible fire⁠—which he was not ordered to do⁠—find out all about it from an officer who had been there. And Miháylof giving him full details of the work, Kaloúgin, after going some way with him, turned off into a trench leading to the bombproof.

“Well, what news?” asked an officer who was eating his supper there all alone.

“Nothing much; it seems that the affair is over.”