CHAPTER XXXIII.-THE FLAG OF TRUCE.

In the rifle-pits many of our men lay dead or dying, and a few paces beyond them brought me among Russians in the same pitiable condition. One, who had been shot through the chest, lay on his back, half in and half out of his lurking hole; his eyes were glazing, bubbles of blood and froth were oozing through his thick black moustaches, which were matted by the cartridges he had bitten. Another was shot through the lungs, and his breath seemed to come with a wheezing sound through the orifice.

There, too, lay the luckless Russian "potted" by Hugh Price. He was one of the imperial 26th, for that number was on his shoulder-straps. On his breast were several copper medals. Others who were able, taking advantage of the cessation of hostilities, were crawling away on their hands or knees towards the town or trenches, in search of water, of succour, and of some kind friend to bind their wounds; and encouraged by the lull in the firing, the little birds were twittering about those ghastly pits in search of biscuit-crumbs or other food.

The ground was studded thickly with rusty fragments of exploded shells, nails, bottles, grape and canister shot; other places were furrowed up, or almost paved with half-buried cannon-balls of every calibre; and here and there, in the crater made by a mine, lay a forgotten corpse in sodden uniform, gray faced with red; and yet singularly enough, amid these horrors, there were springing through the fertile earth many aromatic shrubs, and a vast number of the colchicum autumnale, a beautiful blue crocus-like flower, with which the Crimea abounds.

The Russian drum, hoarse, wooden, and ill-braced, again sounded, and mine replied; then we saw an officer coming towards us from the entanglements of the abattis, with his sword sheathed and waving a white handkerchief. He was a tall grim-looking man, of what rank I could not determine, as all the enemy's officers in the field, from the general down to the last-joined praperchick, or ensign, wore long, ungraceful greatcoats of brownish gray cloth, having simply facings and shoulder-straps. He carried a wooden canteen and an old battered telescope, worn crosswise by two leather straps, and had several silver medals, won doubtless in battle against Schamyl in Circassia.

It is a common belief in England that every Russian gentleman speaks French; but though he may do so better than another foreigner--for he who can pronounce Muscovite "words of ten or twelve consonants apiece" may well speak anything--it is chiefly the language of the court and of diplomacy; and in this instance, when, after saluting each other profoundly, and eyeing each other with stern scrutiny, I addressed the officer in the language of our allies, he replied in German, which I knew very imperfectly.

I made him understand, however, that my message was for the officer in command of the left bastion.

He replied, that to be taken into Sebastopol, or even to be led nearer, required that the eyes of myself and the drummer should be blindfolded, to which I assented; and he proceeded carefully to muffle Dicky Roll and me in such a manner as to place us in utter darkness. He then gave me his arm, I took the drummer by the hand, and in this grotesque fashion, which excited some laughter in the trenches, the trio proceeded, stumbling and awkwardly, towards the city.

I heard the increasing buzz of many voices around us, the unbarring of a heavy wicket, the clatter of musket-butts on the pavement, and occasionally a hoarse order or word of command issued in what seemed the language of necromancy. Caissons, and wagons heavily laden, rattled along the streets; I felt that I was inside Sebastopol; but dared not without permission unbind my eyes, save at the risk of being run through the body by this fellow in the long coat, or made a prisoner of war, and despatched towards Perecop with my hands tied to the mane of a Cossack pony.

The sensation and the conviction were most tantalising; but I was compelled to submit, and knew that we were proceeding through the thoroughfares of that place towards which I had daily turned my field-glass with the most intense curiosity, and which we knew to be one vast garrison rather than a town, with whole streets of barracks, arsenals, and government houses.

A change of sounds and of atmosphere warned me that we were within doors. My guide withdrew the bandages, and then Dicky and I looked around us, dazzled with light, after being in darkness for nearly half an hour. I was in a large whitewashed room, plainly furnished, uncarpeted, heated by a stove of stone in one corner, with an eikon in another. On the table of polished deal lay some books, a copy or two of the Invalide Russe, the Moskauer Zeitung, Panaeff's Russian Snobs, the vernacular for that familiar word being khlishch. On the walls hung maps and documents--orders of the day, perhaps--in Russian.

Through the two large windows, which we were warned not to approach, I obtained a glimpse of the hill on which the residence of Prince Menschikoff was situated. On one side I saw that the streets ran in parallel lines down to the water edge; on the other to where the new naval arsenals lay, in the old Tartar town which was known by the name of Achtiare in the days of Thomas Mackenzie, the Scoto-Russian admiral who first created Sebastopol, and whose khutor, farm or forest for producing masts, excited so much speculation among our Highland Brigade. Everywhere I saw great cannon bristling, all painted pea-green, with a white cross on the breech.

The jingle of spurs caused me to turn, and Dicky to lift his hand to his cap in salute. We saw a tall and handsome Russian officer, of imposing appearance, enter the room. His eyes were dark, yet sharp and keen in expression; he had black strongly-marked eyebrows and an aquiline nose, with a complexion as clear as a woman's, a pretty ample beard, and close-shorn hair. He, too, wore the inevitable greatcoat; but it was open in this instance, and I could see the richly-laced green uniform and curious flat silver epaulettes of the Vladimir Regiment, with the usual number of medals and crosses, for all the armies of Nicholas were well decorated. He bowed with great courtesy, and said in French,

"You have, I understand, a message for me from my Lord Raglan?"

I bowed.

"Before I listen to it you must have some refreshment; your drummer can wait outside."

I bowed again. A soldier-servant placed on the table decanters of Crimskoi wine, with a silver salver of biscuits and pastilla, or little cakes made of fruit and honey; and of these I was not loath to partake, while the soldier in attendance led away Dicky Roll, who eyed me wistfully, and said, as he went out,

"For God's sake don't forget me, Captain Hardinge; I don't like the look of them long-coated beggars at all."

I was somewhat of Dicky's opinion; and being anxious enough to get back to the trenches, stated briefly my message.

"You have, I fear, come on a bootless errand," replied the Russian, "as no officer of your army was, to my knowledge, either killed or taken by us on the night in question; though certainly a man may easily be hit in the dark, and crawl away to some nook or corner, and there die and lie unseen. But the Pulkovnick Ochterlony, who keeps the list of prisoners, will be the best person to afford you information on the matter. Remain with me, and assist yourself to the Crimskoi, while I despatch a message to him."

He drew a glazed card from an embossed case, and pencilling a memorandum thereon, sent his orderly with it, while we seated ourselves, entered into conversation, and pushed the decanter fraternally to and fro.

"I have just come from hearing the Bishop of Sebastopol preach in the great church to all the garrison off duty," said he, laughing; "and he has been promising us great things--honour in this world, and glory in the next--if we succeed in driving you all into the Euxine."

"There are plenty of opportunities afforded here of going to heaven."

"A good many, too, of going the other way; however, I must not tell you all, or even a part, of what the bishop said. He did all that eloquence could do to fire the religious enthusiasm--superstition, if you will--of our soldiers and his language was burning."

"Then you are on the eve of another sortie," said I, unwarily.

"I have not said so," he replied, abruptly, while his eyes gleamed, and handing me his silver cigar-case, on which was engraved a coronet, we lapsed into silence.

The sermon he referred to was that most remarkable one preached on the evening of Saturday, the 4th of November, before one of the most memorable events of the war. In that discourse, this Russian-Greek bishop, with his coronal mitre on his head, glittering with precious gems, a crozier whilom borne by St. Sergius in his hand, his silver beard floating to his girdle over magnificent vestments, stood on the altar-steps of the great church, and assured the masses of armed men who thronged it to the portal that the blessing of God was upon their forthcoming enterprise and the defence of the city; that crowns of eternal glory awaited all those martyrs who fell in battle against the heretical French and the island curs who had dared to levy war on holy Russia and their father the Emperor.

He told them that the English were monsters of cruelty, who tortured their prisoners, committing unheard-of barbarities on all who fell into their hands; that "they were bloodthirsty and abominable heretics, whose extermination was the solemn duty of all who wished to win the favour of God and of the Emperor." He farther assured them that the British camp contained enormous treasures--the spoil of India, vessels of silver and gold, sacks and casks filled with precious stones--one-third of which was to become the property of the victors; and he conjured them, by the memory of Michael and Feodor, who sealed their belief in Christ with their blood, before the savage Batu-Khan, by the black flag unfurled by Demetri Donskoi when he marched against Mamai the Tartar, "by the forty times forty churches of Moscow the holy," and the memory of the French retreat from it, to stand firm and fail not; and a hoarse and prayerful murmur of assent responded to him.

My present host was too well-bred to tell all he had just heard, whether he believed it or not. After a pause, "If another sortie is made," said I, "the slaughter will be frightful."

"Bah!" replied he, cynically, while tipping the white ashes from his cigar, "a few thousands are not missed among the millions of Russia; I presume we only get rid of those who are unnecessary in the general scheme of creation."

"Peasants and serfs, I suppose?"

"Well, perhaps so--peasants and serfs, as you islanders suppose all our people to be."

"Nay, as you Russians deem them."

"We shall not dispute the matter, please," said he, coldly; and now, as I sat looking at him, a memory of his face and voice came over me.

"Count Volhonski!" I exclaimed, "have you quite forgotten me and the duel with the Prussian at Altona?"

He started and took his cigar from his mouth.

"The Hospodeen Hardinge!" said he, grasping my hand with honest warmth; "I must have been blind not to recognise you; but I never before saw you in your scarlet uniform."

"It is more purple than scarlet now, Count."

"Well, our own finery is not much to boast of, though we are in a city, and you are under canvas. But how does the atmosphere of Crim Tartary agree with you?" he asked, laughing.

"A little too much gunpowder in it, perhaps."

"I am sorry, indeed, to find that you and I are enemies, after those pleasant days spent in Hamburg and Altona; but when we last parted in Denmark--you remember our mutual flight across the frontier--you were but a subaltern, a praperchick, a sub-lieutenant, I think."

"I am a captain now."

"Ah--the Alma did that, I presume."

"Exactly."

"You will have plenty of promotion in your army, I expect, ere this war is ended. You shall all be promoted in heaven, I hope, ere holy Russia is vanquished."

"Well, Count, and you--"

"I am now Pulkovnick of the Vladimir Infantry."

"Did the Alma do that?"

"No; the Grand-Duchess Olga, to whom the regiment belongs, promoted me from the Guards, as a reward for restoring her glove, which she dropped one evening at a masked ball given in the hall of St. Vladimir by the Emperor; so my rank was easily won."

A knock rang on the door; spurs and a steel scabbard clattered on the floor, and then entered a stately old officer in the splendid uniform of the Infantry of the Guard, the gilded plate on his high and peculiarly-shaped cap bearing the perforation of more than one bullet, and his breast being scarcely broad enough for all the orders that covered it. He bowed to Volhonski, and saluted me with his right hand, in which he carried a bundle of documents like lists. The Count introduced him as "the Pulkovnick Ochterlony, commanding the Ochterlony Battalion of the Imperial Guard." He was not at all like a Russian, having clear gray eyes and a straight nose, and still less like one did he seem when he addressed me in almost pure English.

"I have," said he, "gone over all the lists of officers of the Allies now prisoners in Sebastopol, or taken since the siege and sent towards Yekaterinoslav, and can find among them no such name as that of Major MacG--, of the 93rd Regiment of Scottish Highlanders. If traces of him are found, dead or alive, a message to that effect shall at once be sent to my Lord Raglan."

"I thank you, sir," said I, rising and regarding him curiously; "you speak very pure English for a Russian!"

"I am a Russian by birth and breeding only; in blood and race I am a countryman of your own."

"Indeed!" said I, coldly and haughtily, "how comes it to pass that an Englishman--"

"Excuse me, sir," said he, with a manner quite as haughty as my own, "I did not say that I was an Englishman; but as we have no time to make explanations on the subject, let us have together a glass of Crimskoi, and part, for the time, friends."

His manner was so suave, his bearing so stately, and his tone so conciliating--moreover his age seemed so great--that I clinked my glass with his, and withdrew with Volhonski, who, sooth to say, seemed exceedingly loath to part with me.

"Who the deuce is that officer?" I asked.

"I introduced him to you by name. He is the colonel of the Ochterlony Battalion of the Guard, which was raised by his father, one of the many Scottish soldiers of fortune who served the Empress Catharine; and the man is Russian to the core in all save blood, which he cannot help; but here is the gate, and you must be again blinded by Tolstoff. Adieu! May our next meeting be equally pleasant and propitious!"

As we separated, there burst from the soldiery who thronged near the gates a roar of hatred and execration, excited doubtless by the bishop's harangue; and poor Dicky Roll shrunk close to my side as we passed out. The ancient Scoto-Muscovite, I afterwards learned, was styled Ochterlony of Guynde, the soldiers of whose regiment had enjoyed from his father's time the peculiar privilege of retaining and wearing their old cap-plates, so long as a scrap of the brass remained, if they had once been perforated by a shot in action; and it is known that this identical old officer--who had some three or four nephews in the Russian Guards--had been visiting his paternal place of Guynde, in Forfarshire, but a few months before the war broke out.

In a few minutes more, Dicky Roll and I found ourselves, with our eyes unbandaged, once more in that pleasant locality midway between the abattis and the trenches, towards which we made our way in all haste, that I might report the issue of my mission concerning the Scotch major, who, as events proved, was found alive and unhurt, luckily; and the moment my white flag disappeared among the gabions--where all crowded round me for news, and where I became the hero of an hour--again the firing was resumed on both sides with all its former fury, and the old game went on--shot and shell, dust, the crash of stones and fascines, thirst, hunger, slaughter, and mutilation. That the Russians had some great essay in petto, the words of Volhonski left us no doubt, nor were we long kept in ignorance of what was impending over us.