“You’ll have to unload first, mate,” Tony answered. “This weight is too much for one horse to keep up while we’re mending, and besides, we’ll get the job done in half the time if we take ’em both out and empty the cart.”
Accordingly all three set to work and lifted the heavy boxes out. Then the horses were unharnessed, and with a length of rope and a batten of wood a shift was made to mend the break.
“That will do, I think,” said Phil at last, surveying the work with satisfaction. “Now in with the animals, and let us get along as quickly as possible. We must be a couple of miles behind the troops, but fortunately the road is clear, and though it is a dark night we ought to reach them without trouble.”
Once more they set out on the road, and were congratulating themselves on the fact that they were close to the camp, when Tony called a halt.
“What are them coves over there?” he asked, pointing ahead to a collection of camp-fires, in front of which mounted figures were flitting. “If them ain’t Russians, I’m a Frenchie.”
“They look remarkably like Cossacks, I must say, Tony,” replied Phil anxiously. “Stop here a few moments while I go forward and make certain.”
In another minute he had disappeared in the darkness. Walking boldly forward for three hundred yards he then judged it wise to observe some caution, and, stooping low, crept forward on the turf at the roadside, which completely muffled his footsteps. Suddenly a figure loomed up in front of him, followed by another, and, flinging himself on the ground, Phil crawled behind a growth of low bush and hastily hid himself from view.
“There, Petroff,” he heard a harsh voice say in Russian, “that is your post. Remain there till you are relieved. If these pigs of Englishmen advance this way gallop back and warn us. See that you do not sleep, my man, or as the Czar, our master, lives, I will hang you to the nearest tree.”
“Excellency, your orders shall be obeyed,” the Cossack trooper answered humbly, and then, as his officer rode off, swore in a low but audible voice.
“Hang me to the nearest tree!” he muttered angrily. “Ah! Will he! Wait, your most noble excellency. Who knows how soon a bullet shall put an end to your threats, and should it come from behind instead of from these foreign pigs, then—ah, well! the fortune of war.”