While he was still there a Russian non-commissioned officer picked up the rifle of a Turk, and took aim at the solitary figure standing upon the slope, but Skobeleff knocked away the barrel with his sword.
'Not that man, my child!' he exclaimed, in a voice hoarse with shouting. 'I know him. Let the story of this fight be told!'
The artillery fire had ceased all round, and for a moment there was a great silence in the valley, only broken by the moan of the dying and an occasional rifle-shot here and there. It was almost as if the living stood aghast—ashamed and cowering before their Maker, by the side of their grim handiwork. And so darkness came over the land, covering the hideousness of it with a merciful veil.
'They cannot possibly hold it!' Trist said to an officer who accosted him as he made his way—dazed and stupefied—back into the town. 'It is untenable.'
This was no idle attempt at consolation. The Russian general had obeyed orders, but now he knew that his gallant work had been all in vain. By itself the redoubt was useless, for it was fully exposed to the Turkish fire, and there was no material at hand to reconstruct it, had his weary men been equal to the task, which they were not. During the night he sent, again and again, for reinforcements, which were persistently withheld, and at dawn he pluckily prepared to defend the position as best he might with the remainder of his own army-corps.
Trist had said that when Osman and Skobeleff met there would be war indeed, and the result proved with terrible reality that he had spoken naught else but the truth.
At daybreak the fight began again. The restless Turkish leader had made all his arrangements during the night. Exposed as it was to a galling fire from all sides, it seemed impossible that the redoubt could be held. But Skobeleff was there, and under Skobeleff the Russians have fought as they never did before.
At Turkish headquarters there was little or no anxiety, for the enemy could not afford to take another redoubt at such a cost, and so skilfully had the fortifications been planned, that there was no reason to suppose that further advances could be made more easily.
'To-morrow,' Osman had said to his chief of staff, 'it must be retaken!' and the young officer merely nodded his head. Then with the pencil that he carried stuck into his fez above his eye, the Turkish commander proceeded to write out his instructions.
At daybreak the fight began again, and the sun had not yet lost its matutinal ruddiness when the first organized attack was made. This was repulsed, and the same fate attended four subsequent attempts. No man but Skobeleff could have held that position for so long. As usual, there was something unique and original in his style of defence. He waited until the attacking force was almost within forty yards before firing, and then met them with one crashing volley, the sound of which rose to the firmament like the crack of doom. After that the roll of fire swept from side to side, from end to end, with a continuous grating rattle like the sweep of a scythe in hay.