“Send for Nikita,” said the captain with his perpetually benevolent smile.  “Nikita, don’t hide yourself, but listen to the mountain nightingales.”

“Well, your honor,” [Footnote:  VASHE VUISOKOBLAGORODIE.  German, HOCHWOHLGEBORENER, high, well-born; regulation title of officers from major to general] said Nikita, who was standing near the captain, “I have seen them—­these nightingales.  I am not afraid of ’em; but here was that stranger who was here, he was drinking up your red wine.  When he heard how that shot dashed by our tents, and the shell rolled by, he cowered down like some wild beast.”

“However, we must send to the commander of the artillery,” said the captain to me, in a serious tone of authority, “and ask whether we shall reply to the fire or not.  It will probably be nothing at all, but still it may.  Have the goodness to go and ask him.  Have a horse saddled.  Do it as quickly as possible, even if you take my Polkan.”

In five minutes they brought me a horse, and I galloped off to the commander of the artillery.  “Look you, return on foot,” whispered the punctilious captain, “else they won’t let you through the lines.”

It was half a verst to the artillery commander’s, the whole road ran between the tents.  As soon as I rode away from our fire, it became so black that I could not see even the horse’s ears, but only the watch-fires, now seeming very near, now very far off, as they gleamed into my eyes.  After I had ridden some distance, trusting to the intelligence of the horse whom I allowed free rein, I began to distinguish the white four-cornered tents and then the black tracks of the road.  After a half-hour, having asked my way three times, and twice stumbled over the tent-stakes, causing each time a volley of curses from the tents, and twice been detained by the sentinels, I reached the artillery commander’s.  While I was on the way, I heard two more cannon shot in the direction of our camp; but the projectiles did not reach to the place where the headquarters were.  The artillery commander ordered not to reply to the firing, the more as the enemy did not remain in the same place; and I went back, leading the horse by the bridle, making my way on foot between the infantry tents.  More than once I delayed my steps, as I went by some soldier’s tent where a light was shining, and some merry-andrew was telling a story; or I listened to some educated soldier reading from some book while the whole division overflowed the tent, or hung around it, sometimes interrupting the reading with various remarks; or I simply listened to the talk about the expedition, about the fatherland, or about their chiefs.

As I came around one of the tents of the third battalion, I heard Guskof’s rough voice:  he was speaking hilariously and rapidly.  Young voices replied to him, not those of soldiers, but of gay gentlemen.  It was evidently the tent of some yunker or sergeant-major.  I stopped short.