“Who is it?” he asked, staying his men with a gesture, and staring down at me with a puzzled frown.
“Maurice Wynn.”
“Monsieur Wynn! Ma foi! What the devil are you doing here?”
“Curiosity,” I said. “And I guess I’ve paid for it!”
I suppose I must have fainted then, for the next thing I knew I was sitting with my back to a tree, while a soldier beside me, leaning on his rifle, exchanged ribald pleasantries with some of his comrades who, assisted by several stolid-faced moujiks, were busily engaged in filling in and stamping down a huge and hastily dug grave.
At a little distance, three officers, one of them Mirakoff, were talking together, and beside them, thrown on an outspread coat, was a heap of oddments, chiefly papers, revolvers, and “killers.” As I looked a soldier gathered these up into a bundle, and hoisted it on his shoulder. A watch and chain fell out, and he picked them up, and pocketed them.
I heard a hoarse word of command on the right, and saw a number of prisoners—the remnant of the revolutionists, each with a soldier beside him—file into the wood. They all looked miserable enough, poor wretches. Some were wounded, scarcely able to stand, and their guards urged them forward by prodding them with their bayonets.
I wondered why I wasn’t among them, and guessed if they tried to make me march that way, I’d just stay still and let them prod the life out of me!
I still felt dazed and queer, and my broken left arm hurt me badly. It hung helpless at my side, but my right arm had been roughly bandaged and put in a sling, and I could feel a wad over the other wound, held in place by a scarf of some kind. My mouth and throat were parched with a burning thirst that was even worse than the pain in my arm.
The group of officers dispersed, and Mirakoff crossed over to me.