"To arms! an ambuscade!"
Pan Serafin found himself at the obstruction in one moment, and understood that there was no chance of being mistaken: a broad ditch had been dug across the ridgeway. Beyond the ditch lay whole pine trees which, with their branches sticking up, formed a great breastwork. The men who stopped the road in that fashion had evidently intended to let the party in on the ridge, from which there was no escape on either side, and attack in the rear then.
"To your guns! to muskets!" thundered Father Voynovski. "They are coming!"
In fact about a hundred yards in the rear certain dark, square forms, strange, quite unlike men, appeared on the ridge, and ran toward the wagons very quickly.
"Fire!" commanded the priest.
A report was heard, and brilliant flashes rent the night gloom. Only one form rolled to the earth, but the other men ran the more swiftly toward the wagons, and after them denser groups made their appearance.
Instructed by whole years of war, the priest divined straightway that those men were carrying bundles before them, straw, reeds, or willows, and that was why the first discharge had effected so little.
"Fire! In order! four at a time!--and at their knees!" cried he.
Two attendants held guns charged with slugs. These men took their places with others, and spat at the knees of the attackers. A cry of pain was heard promptly, and this time the whole front rank of bundles tumbled down to the mud on the ridgeway, but the next rank of men sprang over those who were prostrate, and came still nearer the wagons.
"Fire!" was commanded a third time.