The impromptu rope was soon twisted, the stone knotted in it, and flung so dexterously across the chasm that it caught in the fork of a tree at the first cast. The daring Cossack, with a sapper's axe slung round his neck, swung himself nimbly over the fearful gulf, and went to work upon the trees with such vigor that it was not long before three of them lay right across the gap, bridging it completely.
Then the Prince and his men, stirred to frenzy by the increasing uproar of the battle below, scrambled like mad-men across the perilous bridge, and rushing up the heights beyond, commenced firing down upon the French on the other side. Confounded by this unexpected attack, the enemy broke and fled, and the fight was won.
"Well done, my children," said Marshal Suvoroff, as he passed along the Russian lines after the battle, with a glow of honest admiration on his rough old face—"well done, indeed! You have given those French dogs a lesson, and shown them that Russian bayonets have points."
"If you're satisfied with us, father, that's all we want," replied a grim old grenadier, with a face criss-crossed with scars, like a railway map; "but, after all, we might well fight stoutly when we'd just had such a big meal of that good cheese."
"Cheese, eh? Where did you get it?"
"In the village yonder. We ate a whole shopful in passing through. I've got a bit left yet, if your Excellency would like to taste."
And opening his pouch, the veteran displayed to the old General's astounded eyes a half-gnawed piece of yellow soap.
A roar of laughter, which even the presence of the Commander-in-Chief could not restrain, broke from the staff officers around, and for many a day after the "good cheese" of Andermatt was their standing joke.