“This,” whispered Ali Bobo solemnly, “is more than I can stand.”
Eskiwin whispered in reply that he would have to stand it whether he could or not.
Bobo didn’t agree with him (not an unusual condition of mind with friends). He looked round. A huge stone lay at his elbow. It seemed to have been placed there on purpose. He rose very slowly, lifted the stone, held it in a position which is familiar to Scotch Highlanders, and hurled it with tremendous force down on the head of Sergeant Gotsuchakoff.
The sergeant bowed to circumstances. Without even a cry, he tumbled off his horse and laid his helmet in the dust.
The Turks leaped down, seized him in their powerful arms, and carried him away, while the frightened horse bolted. It followed, probably, an animal instinct, and made for the Russian lines.
The corporal chanced to return at that moment. The Turks dropped their burden and lay flat down beside it. Seeing that his friend was gone, and hearing the clatter of his retreating charger, Corporal Shoveloff put spurs to his steed and followed.
The Turks then rose, tied the legs of the sergeant with his own sword-belt, lest he should recover inopportunely, and bore him to a neighbouring thicket which loomed darkly through the fog.
“Fate smiles upon us,” whispered Ali Bobo, as the comrades entered the bushes and laid their burden down.
If Bobo had known that he had laid that burden down within ten yards of the spot where Dobri Petroff was preparing, as I have described, to stalk the figure he had discovered in the same thicket, he might have recalled the sentiment in reference to Fate. But Bobo did not know.
Suddenly, however, he discovered the figure that Petroff was stalking. It was leaning against a tree. He pointed it out to Eskiwin, while the scout, interrupted in his plans, sank into darkness and watched the result with much curiosity and some impatience.