In the Track of the Troops

by R. M. Ballantyne

When morning light had just begun to conquer night, Lancey was once more awakened from a refreshing sleep by a noise in the room below. He looked down and saw an old, old woman, with bent form, tottering step, and wrinkled brow. She was searching for something which, evidently, she could not find. Scraping various things, however, and tasting the ends of her thin fingers, suggested that she was in search of food. Lancey was a sympathetic soul. The old woman’s visage reminded him of his own mother—dead and gone for many a day, but fresh and beautiful as ever in the memory of her son.

He descended at once. The old woman had flung herself down in despair in a corner of the hovel. Lancey quickly emptied the remnants of food in his wallet into her lap.

It would have saddened you, reader, to have seen the way in which that poor old thing hungrily munched a mouthful of the broken victuals without asking questions, though she glanced her gratitude out of a pair of large black eyes, while she tied up the remainder in a kerchief with trembling haste.

“No doubt,” soliloquised Lancey, as he sat on a stool and watched her, “you were a pretty gal once, an’ somebody loved you.”

It did not occur to Lancey, for his philosophy was not deep, that she might have been loved more than “once,” even although she had not been a “pretty gal;” neither did it occur to him—for he did not know—that she was loved still by an old, old man in a neighbouring hut, whose supper had been carried off by the Cossacks, and whose welfare had induced her to go out in search of food.

While the two were thus engaged their attention was attracted by a noise outside. Hastening to the door Lancey peeped out and beheld a band of Bashi-Bazouks galloping up the road. The Turks of the village began to hold up their heads again, for they regarded these as friends, but scant was the courtesy they received from them. To dismount and pillage, and to slay where the smallest opposition was offered, seemed the order of the day with these miscreants. For some time none of them came near to the hut where Lancey and the old woman were concealed, as it stood in an out-of-the-way corner and escaped notice.

While the robbers were busy, a wild cheer, accompanied by shots and cries, was heard some distance along the road. The Bashi-Bazouks heard it and fled. A few minutes later Lancey saw Turkish soldiers running into the village in scattered groups, but stopping to fire as they ran, like men who fight while they retreat. Immediately after there was a rush of men, and a column of Turkish infantry occupied the village in force. They were evidently hard pressed, for the men ran and acted with that quick nervous energy which denotes imminent danger.

They swarmed into the houses, dashed open the windows, knocked out loop-holes in the walls, and kept up a furious fusillade, while whistling balls came back in reply, and laid many of them low.

One party of Turks at last made a rush to the hut where Lancey sat with the old woman. There was no weapon of any sort in the hut, and as Lancey’s arms had been taken from him when he was captured, he deemed it the wisest policy to sit still.

Leaping in with a rush, the Turks shut and barred the door. They saw Lancey, but had evidently no time to waste on him. The window-frame was dashed out with rifle-butts, and quick firing was commenced by some, while others made loop-holes in the mud walls with their bayonets. Bullets came pinging through the window and brought down masses of plaster from the walls. Suddenly a terrible yell rang in the little room, and the commander of the party, raising both hands above him, dropped his sword and fell with a terrible crash. He put a hand to his side and writhed on the floor in agony, while blood flowed copiously from his wound. The poor fellow’s pain lasted but a moment or two. His head fell back suddenly, and the face became ashy pale, while his glaring eyeballs were transfixed in death.