"'With your excellency's leave,' said the young fellow, respectfully, but pretty firmly too, 'the fault is none of mine. These fuses are ill-made, and will not burn down to the powder.'
"'Fuses!' exclaimed the general. 'Don't talk to me of fuses; I'm too old for that rubbish! Isn't it enough for you to bungle your work, but you must tell me a falsehood into the bargain?'
"At the word 'falsehood' the young officer's face seemed to turn red-hot all in a moment, and I saw his hand clench as if he would drive his fingers through the flesh. He made one stride to the heap of bomb-shells, and taking one up in his arms struck a match on it.
"'Now,' said he quietly, 'your excellency can judge for yourself. I'm going to light this fuse; if your excellency will please to stand by and watch it burn you will see whether I have told you a falsehood or not.'
"The general started, as well he might. Not that he was afraid—you may be pretty sure of that—but to hear this quiet, bashful lad, who looked as if he had nothing in him, coolly propose to hold a lighted shell in his arms to see if it would go off, and ask him to stand by and watch it, was enough to startle anybody. However, he wasn't one to think twice about accepting a challenge; so he folded his arms and stood there like a statue. The young officer lighted the fuse, and it began to burn.
"As for me and the other men, you may fancy what we felt like. Of course we couldn't run while our officers were standing their ground; but we knew that if the shell did go off, it would blow every man of us to bits, and it was not pleasant to have to stand still and wait for it. I saw the men set their teeth hard as the flame caught the fuse; and as for me, I wished with all my heart and soul that if there were any good fuses in the heap this might turn out to be one of the bad ones. But no, it burned away merrily enough, and came down, and down, and down nearer and nearer to the powder. The young officer never moved a muscle, but stood looking steadily at the general, and the general at him. At last the red spark got close to the metal of the shell, and then I shut my eyes and prayed God to receive my soul.
"Just at that moment I heard the man next me give a quick gasp, as if he had just come up from a plunge under water; and I opened my eyes again just in time to see the fuse go out, and the young officer letting the shell drop at the general's feet without a word.
"For a moment the general stood stock-still, looking as if he didn't quite know whether to knock the young fellow down or to hug him in his arms like a son; but at last he held out his hand to him and said:
"'Well, it's a true proverb, that every one meets his match some day, and I've met mine today, there's no denying it. There's the Cross of St. George for you, my boy, and right well you deserve it, for if I'm 'the coolest man in my regiment,' you're the coolest in all Russia!'
"And so said all the rest when the story got abroad; and the commander-in-chief himself, the great Count Diebitsch, sent for the lad, and said a few kind words to him that made his face flush up like a young girl's. But in after days he became one of the best officers the Russian army ever had; and I've seen him with my own eyes complimented by the emperor himself in presence of the whole army. And from that day forth the whole lot of us, officers and men alike, never spoke of him by any other name but Khladnokrovni—'the cold-blooded one.'"