Omar Pasha compares his answer with the paper he holds in his hand. I fancy he sets his teeth a little tighter, but otherwise he moves not a muscle of his countenance.
"At what distance from the Danube did you leave your General's head-quarters?"
The prisoner pretends not to understand. My limited knowledge of his language obliges me to put the question in an involved form, and he seems to take time to consider his answer. There is nothing about the man to distinguish him from the common Russian soldier--a mere military serf. He is dressed in the long, shabby, grey coat, the greasy boots, and has a low overhanging brow, a thoroughly Calmuck cast of features, and an intensely stupid expression of countenance; but I remark that his hands, which are nervously pressed together, are white and slender, and his feet are much too small for their huge shapeless coverings.
His eye glitters as he steals a look at the General, whilst he answers, "Not more than an hour and a half."
Again Omar consults his paper, and a gleam passes over his face like that of a chess-player who has checkmated his adversary.
"One more question," he observes, courteously, "and I will trouble you no longer. What force of artillery is attached to your General's corps d'armée?"
"Eight batteries of field-cannon and four troops of horse artillery," replies the prisoner, this time without a moment's hesitation; but the sweat breaks out on his forehead, for he is watching Omar Pasha's countenance, and he reads "death" on that impassible surface.
"It is sufficient, gentlemen," observes the General to the officers who surround him. "Let him be taken to the rear of the encampment and shot forthwith."
The prisoner's lip quivers nervously, but he shows extraordinary pluck, and holds himself upright as if on parade.
"Poor devil!" says a hearty voice in English; and turning round, I see a good-looking, broad-shouldered Englishman, in the uniform of a brigadier, who is watching the prisoner with an air of pity and curiosity approaching the ludicrous. "Excellence," says he, in somewhat broken German, "will you not send him to me? I will undertake that he spreads no false reports about the camp. I will answer for his safety in my hands; he must not be permitted to communicate with any one, even by signs; but it is a pity to shoot him, is it not?"