But the guns remained loaded, the loopholes in blockhouses and entrenchments looked out just as menacingly, and the unlimbered cannon confronted one another as before.
XVI
Having ridden round the whole line from right flank to left, Prince Andréy made his way up to the battery from which the staff officer had told him the whole field could be seen. Here he dismounted, and stopped beside the farthest of the four unlimbered cannon. Before the guns an artillery sentry was pacing up and down; he stood at attention when the officer arrived, but at a sign resumed his measured, monotonous pacing. Behind the guns were their limbers and still farther back picket ropes and artillerymen’s bonfires. To the left, not far from the farthest cannon, was a small, newly constructed wattle shed from which came the sound of officers’ voices in eager conversation.
It was true that a view over nearly the whole Russian position and the greater part of the enemy’s opened out from this battery. Just facing it, on the crest of the opposite hill, the village of Schön Grabern could be seen, and in three places to left and right the French troops amid the smoke of their campfires, the greater part of whom were evidently in the village itself and behind the hill. To the left from that village, amid the smoke, was something resembling a battery, but it was impossible to see it clearly with the naked eye. Our right flank was posted on a rather steep incline which dominated the French position. Our infantry were stationed there, and at the farthest point the dragoons. In the center, where Túshin’s battery stood and from which Prince Andréy was surveying the position, was the easiest and most direct descent and ascent to the brook separating us from Schön Grabern. On the left our troops