In the Track of the Troops by Robert Michael Ballantyne (fantasy books to read TXT) 📖

glance to show that recognition of the remains was impossible. Everything was reduced to cinders.

As we gazed an appalling cry rang in our ears, and next moment a young woman darted out from behind a piece of the blackened walls with a knife in her hand.

"Hah! are you come back, you devils?" she shrieked, and flew at Dobri, who would certainly have been stabbed, for he paid no attention to her, if I had not caught her wrist, and forced the knife from her grasp. Even then she sprang at him and fastened her fingers in his neck while she cried, "Give me back my child, I say! give me my child, you fiend!"

She stopped and looked earnestly in his face, then, springing back, and standing before him with clenched hands, she screamed--

"Ha, haa! it is you, Dobri! why did you not come to help us? traitor-- coward--to leave us at such a time! Did you not hear the shrieks of Marika when they dragged her from your cottage? Did you not see the form of little Dobri quivering on the point of the Circassian's spear? Were you deaf when Ivanka's death-shriek pierced my ears like--. Oh! God forgive me, Dobri, I did not mean to--"

She stopped in the torrent of her wrath, stretched both arms convulsively towards heaven, and, with a piercing cry for "Mercy!" fell dead at our feet.

Still the scout did not move. He stood in the same half-shrinking attitude of intense agony, glaring at the ruin around him.

"Dobri," said I at last, gently touching his arm, and endeavouring to arouse him.

He started like one waking out of a dream, hurled me aside with such violence that I fell heavily to the ground, and rushed from the spot at full speed.

Lancey ran after him, but soon stopped. He might as well have chased a mountain hare. We both, however, followed the track he had pursued, and, catching our horses, passed into the village.

"It's of no use to follow, sir," said Lancey, "we can't tell which way 'e's gone."

I felt that pursuit would indeed be useless, and pulled up with the intention of searching among the ruins of the village for some one who might have escaped the carnage, and could give me information.

The sights that met our eyes everywhere were indeed terrible. But I pass over the sickening details with the simple remark, that no ordinary imagination could conceive the deeds of torture and brutality of which these Turkish irregulars had been guilty. We searched carefully, but for a long time could find no one.

Cattle were straying ownerless about the place, while dogs and pigs were devouring the murdered inhabitants. Thinking it probable that some of the people might have taken refuge in the church, we went to it. Passing from the broad glare of day into the darkened porch, I stumbled over an object on the ground. It was the corpse of a young woman with the head nearly hacked off, the clothes torn, and the body half burnt. But this was as nothing to the scene inside. About two hundred villagers--chiefly women, children, aged, and sick--had sought refuge there, and been slaughtered indiscriminately. We found the dead and dying piled together in suffocating heaps. Little children were crawling about looking for their mothers, wounded mothers were struggling to move the ghastly heaps to find their little ones. Many of these latter were scarce recognisable, owing to the fearful sword-cuts on their heads and faces. I observed in one corner an old man whose thin white hair was draggled with blood. He was struggling in the vain endeavour to release himself from a heap of dead bodies that had either fallen or been thrown upon him.

We hastened to his assistance. After freeing him, I gave him a little brandy from my flask. He seemed very grateful, and, on recovering a little, told us, with many a sigh and pause for breath, that the village had been sacked by Turkish irregular troops, Circassians, who, after carrying off a large number of young girls, returned to the village, and slaughtered all who had not already fled to the woods for refuge.

While the old man was telling the mournful tale I observed a little girl run out from behind a seat where she had probably been secreting herself, and gaze wildly at me. Blood-stained, dishevelled, haggard though she was, I instantly recognised the pretty little face.

"Ivanka!" I exclaimed, holding out my arms.

With a scream of delight she rushed forward and sprang into them. Oh how the dear child grasped me,--twined her thin little arms round me, and strained as if she would crush herself into my bosom, while she buried her face in my neck and gave way to restful moans accompanied by an occasional convulsive sob!

Well did I understand the feelings of her poor heart. For hours past she had been shocked by the incomprehensible deeds of blood and violence around her; had seen, as she afterwards told me, her brother murdered, and her mother chased into the woods and shot by a soldier; had sought refuge in the church with those who were too much taken up with their own terrible griefs to care for her, and, after hours of prolonged agony and terror, coupled with hunger and thirst, had at last found refuge in a kindly welcome embrace.

After a time I tried to disengage her arms, but found this to be impossible without a degree of violence which I could not exert. Overcome by the strain, and probably by long want of rest, the poor child soon fell into a profound slumber.

While I meditated in some perplexity as to how I should act, my attention was aroused by the sudden entrance of a number of men. Their dress and badges at once told me that they formed a section of that noble band of men and women, who, following close on the heels of the "dogs of war," do all that is possible to alleviate the sufferings of hapless victims.--God's work going on side by side with that of the devil! In a few minutes surgeons were tenderly binding up wounds, and ambulance-men were bearing them out of the church from which the dead were also removed for burial.

"Come, Lancey," said I, "our services here are happily no longer required. Let us go."

"Where to, sir?" said Lancey.

"To the nearest spot," I replied after a moment's thought, "where I can lie down and sleep. I am dead beat, Lancey, for want of rest, and really feel unable for anything. If only I can snatch an hour or two, that will suffice. Meanwhile, you will go to the nearest station and find out if the railway has been destroyed."

We hurried out of the dreadful slaughter-house, Ivanka still sound asleep on my shoulder, and soon discovered an outhouse in which was a little straw. Rolling some of this into a bundle for a pillow, I lay down so as not to disturb the sleeping child. Another moment and I too was steeped in that profound slumber which results from thorough physical and mental exhaustion.

Lancey went out, shut the door, fastened it, and left us.


CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.


THE FALL OF PLEVNA.

The events which followed the massacre in the Bulgarian village remain in my mind, and ever must remain as a confused dream, for I was smitten that night with a fever, during the course of which--part of it at least--I was either delirious or utterly prostrate.

And who can tell, save those who have passed through a similar condition, the agonies which I endured, and the amazing fancies by which I was assailed at that time! Of course I knew not where I was, and I cared not. My unbridled fancy led me everywhere. Sometimes I was in a bed, sometimes on horseback; now in hospital attending wounded people, most of whom I noticed were women or little children; then on a battle-field, cheering the combatants with all my power, or joining them, but, when I chanced to join them, it was never for the purpose of taking, but of saving life. Often I was visited by good spirits, and also by bad. One of these latter, a little one, made a deep impression on me. His particular mission seemed to lie in his power to present before me, within a flaming frame, pictures of whatever I wished to behold. He was wonderfully tractable at first, and showed me whatever I asked for,--my mother, Bella, Nicholas, and many of my friends,--but by degrees he insisted on showing what I did not wish to see, and among these latter pictures were fearful massacres, and scenes of torture and bloodshed. I have a faint recollection of being carried somewhere in a jolting wagon, of suffering from burning thirst which no one seemed to care to relieve, of frequent abrupt stoppages, while shouts, shrieks, and imprecations filled my ears; but whether these things were realities or fancies, or a mingling of both, I cannot tell, for assuredly the bad spirit never once succeeded in showing me any picture half so terrible as those realities of war which I had already beheld.

One day I felt a peculiar sensation. It seemed to me that my intellectual faculties became more active, while those of my body appeared to sink.

"Come," said I to the demon who had wearied me so much; "come, you troublesome little devil, and show me my man Lancey. I can see better than usual; present him!"

Immediately Lancey stood by my side. He looked wonderfully real, and I noticed that the fiery frame was not round him as it used to be. A moment later, the pretty face of Ivanka also glided into the picture.

"Hallo!" I exclaimed, "I didn't ask you to send _her_ here. Why don't you wait for orders--eh?"

At this Lancey gently pushed Ivanka away.

"No, don't do that," I cried hastily; "I didn't mean that; order her back again--do you hear?"

Lancey appeared to beckon, and she returned. She was weeping quietly.

"Why do you weep, dear?" I asked in Russian.

"Oh! you have been _so_ ill," she replied, with an anxious look and a sob.

"So, then," I said, looking at Lancey in surprise, "you are not delusions!"

"No, sir, we ain't; but I sometimes fancy that everythink in life is delusions since we comed to this 'orrible land."

I looked hard at Ivanka and Lancey again for some moments, then at the bed on which I lay. Then a listless feeling came over me, and my eyes wandered lazily round the chamber, which was decidedly Eastern in its appearance. Through a window at the farther end I could see a garden. The sun was shining brightly on autumnal foliage, amidst which a tall and singular-looking man walked slowly to and fro. He was clad in flowing robes, with a red fez on his head which was counterbalanced by a huge red beard.

"At all events _he_ must be a delusion," said I, pointing with a hitch of my nose to the man in question.

"No, sir, 'e ain't; wery much the rewerse.--But you mustn't speak, sir; the doctor said we was on no account to talk to you."

"But just