Suddenly the guns pounding the German first line trenches "lifted," transferring their hail of projectiles to a line well beyond. Simultaneously swarms of grey-coated Russian infantry appeared from the invisible trenches, clambered over the parapets, and surged shoulder to shoulder across the intervening "no man's land."
Numbers fell, for the Huns had contrived, even amidst the inferno of high explosive shells, to keep some of their machine-guns intact.
But the Czar's troops were not to be denied. With the sunlight glinting upon their long bayonets, and with a succession of rousing cheers they swept forward unfalteringly and irresistibly.
Penetrating the barbed wire entanglements they closed. Here and there bayonet crossed bayonet, or clubbed rifle fell upon foeman's skull, but for the most part the Huns, their spirits crushed by the nerve-racking bombardment, threw down their rifles and raised their hands above their heads in token of surrender.
Over the parados of the captured trench swept the triumphant troops, hurling hand grenades by hundreds into the second line of Hun defences. The reserve trenches shared the same fate, and in less than forty minutes the surviving Germans, unable to flee owing to the steady barrage fire, surrendered to their hitherto despised foes.
Already swarms of prisoners, closely guarded, were being marched to the rear of the Russian positions, while a long line of wounded, some supported by their comrades, others borne in stretchers, and others walking slowly and painfully, testified to the stubbornness of the conflict.
"What are those fellows doing, I wonder?" asked Dick, indicating a large body of unarmed men who were approaching with every indication of delight. They were still some distance off, but by the aid of their binoculars Blake and his party could see the men with comparative distinctness.
They were clad mostly in a motley of rags Their faces were black with dirt and almost hidden by long, straggling beards. Yet in spite of their battered and scarecrow appearances they marched with a good idea of military order.
"Poles, perhaps," suggested one of the Russian officers. "The Huns have forced a lot of them into their ranks. That is what the Germans meant by granting them self-government."
"You are wrong there, Alexis Ivanovitch," said his brother officer, speaking in French, for, out of politeness to their guests, they had refrained from talking to each other in their native tongue. "Those men are not Poles; they are English and French."