He folded the letter, and enclosed it in an envelope, which he addressed carefully in a legible roundhand.
'There,' he murmured, 'let that be the last line I write to-night. It seems to me that we are on the verge of a crisis. Osman has something on his mind ... I wonder if he means to cut his way out.'
Before lying down to rest on the heap of straw which served him as a bed, he collected all his papers and placed them securely in a large leather despatch-case, upon which was painted in black letters the address of the newspaper which he served. This was his nightly custom; for he was out all day upon the walls among the devoted children of Islam, and where bullets are flying no man has a right to ignore the chances of death. There was no bravado in the action, but a mere simple method. The chances were much in favour of the little baker's shop being left empty one night; but that was no reason why the British public should be defrauded of its rightful sensation in the matter of words written by a hand that is still, for nothing is so safe to draw as the last words of one who has died in battle or mishap.
People who live peaceably at home are accustomed to receive great odds in the game of life and death. They, therefore, cannot understand why others—wanderers, sailors at all times, soldiers in time of war—are content with the lighter favour, and have the power of living happily in close proximity to death.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE PUZZLE OF LIFE.
For five days and five nights there was little sleep to be had in Plevna. The Russians did not attack, as had been generally expected within the town, but commenced a terrible bombardment. Day and night the heavy guns were served by continual relays of men, and life in the redoubts was such as to reconcile the most philosophic to death. Within the town the scene was simply hellish. Osman has been accused of neglecting his wounded, but no man who crouched in the little town he so gloriously defended during those days would have the courage to aver that he could have done more than he did.
Tuesday, the eleventh of September, dawned, gray and hopeless. The smoke of a million rifles, a thousand cannon, hung heavily over the low hills. The continuous roar of the last few days seemed to have benumbed the very air, even as it had paralyzed men's senses.
In the Russian camp upon the Loftcha road there were signs of extra activity. The artillery fire was somewhat slacker.
'They will attack the redoubts to-day,' Theodore Trist said to himself, as he surveyed the position of affairs in the gray morning light. There was not much to be seen, owing to the density of the fog hanging low in the vales, but the five days' bombardment followed by audible activity in camp had some meaning.