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With great difficulty he managed to get to his horse, and

shouting continually he moved on. The soldiers squeezed

themselves to make way for him, but again pressed on him so that

they jammed his leg, and those nearest him were not to blame for

they were themselves pressed still harder from behind.

"Nesvitski, Nesvitski! you numskull!" came a hoarse voice from

behind him.

Nesvitski looked round and saw, some fifteen paces away but

separated by the living mass of moving infantry, Vaska Denisov,

red and shaggy, with his cap on the back of his black head and a

cloak hanging jauntily over his shoulder.

"Tell these devils, these fiends, to let me pass!" shouted

Denisov evidently in a fit of rage, his coal-black eyes with

their bloodshot whites glittering and rolling as he waved his

sheathed saber in a small bare hand as red as his face.

"Ah, Vaska!" joyfully replied Nesvitski. "What's up with you?"