“Rest!” said Charnyetski to him.
“Well! I wish to eat something. Soroka, give me what you have at hand.”
The old sergeant bestirred himself quickly. He brought some gorailka in a tin cup and some dried fish. Kmita began to eat eagerly, raising his eyes from time to time and looking at the bombs flying over at no great distance, just as if he were looking at crows. But still they flew in considerable number, not from Chenstohova, but from the opposite side; namely, all those which passed over the cloister and the church.
“They have poor gunners, they point too high,” said Pan Andrei, without ceasing to eat; “see, they all go over us, and they are aimed at us.”
A young monk heard these words,—a boy of seventeen years, who had just entered his novitiate. He was the first always to bring balls for loading, and he did not leave his place though every vein in him was trembling from fear, for he saw war for the first time. Kmita made an indescribable impression on him by his calmness, and hearing his words he took refuge near him with an involuntary movement as if wishing to seek protection and safety under the wings of that strength.
“Can they reach us from that side?” asked he.
“Why not?” answered Kmita. “And why, my dear brother, are you afraid?”
“I thought,” answered the trembling youth, “that war was terrible; but I did not think it was so terrible.”
“Not every bullet kills, or there would not be men in the world, there would not be mothers enough to give birth to them.”
“I have the greatest fear of those fiery balls, those bombs. Why do they burst with such noise? Mother of God, save us! and they wound people so terribly.”