The pursuit was fast and furious. After crossing such a river as the Danube, in the teeth of a far superior force and under a heavy fire--after carrying the Russian redoubts with the bayonet, and driving their main body back upon its reserve, the Turkish troops, flushed and wild with victory, were not to be stopped by any soldiers on earth.
Iskender's charge had completely scattered the devoted body that had so gallantly interposed to cover the retreat of their comrades, and a total rout of the Russian forces was the result. The plains of Wallachia were literally strewed with dismounted guns, broken ambulance wagons, tumbrils, ammunition carts, dead and dying, whilst still the fierce Moslem urged his hot pursuit. Straggler after straggler, reeking with haste and all agape with fear, reached the astonished town of Bucharest, and the reports in that pleasure-seeking capital were, as may well be imagined, of the most bewildering and contradictory description.
Many a frightful scene was witnessed by the terrified Wallachian peasant, as fugitive after fugitive was overtaken, struck down and butchered by the dread pursuers. Nay, women and children were not spared in the general slaughter; and the hideous practice of refusing "quarter," which has so long existed between the Turkish and Russian armies, now bore ghastly fruit.
A horse falls exhausted in a cart which contains some Russian wounded, and a woman belonging to their regiment. Its comrade vainly struggles to draw them through the slough in which they are fast. Half-a-dozen Turkish troopers are on their track, urging those game little horses to their speed, and escape is hopeless.
Helpless and mutilated, the poor fellows abandon themselves to their fate. The Turks ride in and make short work of them, the Muscov dying with a stolid grim apathy peculiar to himself and his natural foe. The woman alone shows energy and quickness in her efforts to preserve her child. She covers the baby over with the straw at the bottom of the cart; wounded as she is in the confusion, and with an arm broken, she seeks to divert the attention of her ruthless captors. Satisfied with their butchery, they are about to ride on in search of fresh victims, and the mother's heart leaps to think that she has saved her darling. But the baby cries in its comfortless nest; quick as thought, a Turkish trooper buries his lance amongst the straw, and withdraws the steel head and gaudy pennon, reeking with innocent blood. The mother's shriek flies straight to Heaven. Shall the curse she invokes on that ruthless brute fall back unheard? Ride on, man of blood--ride on, to burn and ravage and slay; and when the charge hath swept over thee, and the field is lost, and thou art gasping out thy life-blood on the plain, think of that murdered child, and die like a dog in thy despair!
By a route nearly parallel with the line of flight, but wandering through an unfrequented district with which the Cossacks seem well acquainted, the Beloochee and myself proceed towards our captivity. We have ample leisure to examine our guards, these far-famed Cossacks of whom warriors hear so much and see so little--the best scouts and foragers known, hardy, rapid, and enduring, the very eyes and ears of an army, and for every purpose except fighting unrivalled by any light cavalry in the world. My original captor, who still clings to me with a most unwelcome fondness, is no bad specimen of his class. He is mounted on a shaggy pony, that at first sight seems completely buried even under the middle-sized man it carries, but with a lean, good head, and wiry limbs that denote speed and endurance, when put to the test. In a snaffle bridle, and with its head up, the little animal goes with a jerking, springing motion, not the least impaired by its day's work, and the fact that it has now been without food for nearly twenty-four hours. Its master, the same who keeps his small bright eye so constantly fastened upon his prisoners, is a man of middle height, spare, strong, and sinewy, with a bushy red beard and huge moustache. His dress consists of enormously loose trousers, a tight-fitting jacket, and high leathern shako; and he sits with his knees up to his chin. His arms are a short sabre, very blunt, and useless, and a long lance, with which he delights to do effective service against a fallen foe. He has placed the Beloochee between himself and me; it seems that he somewhat mistrusts my companion, but considers myself, a wounded man on one of their own horses, safe from any attempt at escape. The Beloochee, notwithstanding that every word calls down a thwack upon his pate (wounded as it is by the sabre-cut which stunned him) from the shaft of a lance, hazards an observation, every now and then, in Turkish. It is satisfactory to find that our guardians are totally ignorant of that language. I remark, too, that Ali listens anxiously at every halt, and apparently satisfied with what he hears, though I for my own part can discern nothing, walks on in a cheerful frame of mind, which I attribute entirely to the Moslem stoicism. His conversation towards dusk consists entirely of curses upon his captors; and these worthies, judging of its tenor by the sound, and sympathising doubtless with the relief thus afforded, cease to belabour him for his remarks.
At nightfall the rain came on again as in the morning; and at length it grew pitch dark, just as we entered a defile, on one side of which was a steep bank covered with short brushwood, and on the other a wood of young oaks nearly impenetrable.
I felt the Beloochee's wrist press mine with an energy that must mean something.
"Are you in pain?" he whispered in Turkish, adding a loud and voluble curse upon the Giaour, much out of unison with his British character, but which was doubtless mistaken for a round English oath.
"Not much," I replied in the same language; "but sick and faint at times."