Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 03.djvu/27

Rh and a certain terror, took Staff-Captain Sh aside and began to say something to him in a whisper. The goodnatured staff-captain struck him in the abdomen with the large, puffy palm of his hand and cried out in a loud voice: "Never mind, my friend, I will trust you."

The game was ended and won by the party to which the low-ranked stranger belonged; when it was his turn to ride on the back of one of our officers, Ensign D, the ensign blushed, walked over to the benches, and offered the low-ranked man cigarettes as a ransom. We ordered the mulled wine; while in the orderlies' tent could be heard the busy preparations of Nikita and his orders that a messenger fetch cinnamon and clove, and while his back stretched in places the dirty flaps of the tent, we seven men seated ourselves near the benches and, alternately drinking tea from the three glasses and looking before us at the plain which was being merged in darkness, conversed and laughed about the various circumstances of the game.

The stranger in the short fur coat did not take part in the conversation, stubbornly refused the tea which I offered him several times, and, squatting in Tartar fashion on the ground, kept rolling cigarettes of crushed tobacco and smoking them, obviously not so much for his pleasure as in order to give himself the aspect of a man having some occupation. When somebody mentioned that we expected to retreat on the following day, and that, very likely, there would be some engagements, he raised himself on his knees and, turning directly to Staff-Captain Sh, remarked that he had just come from the adjutant's house, and that he himself had written out the order for the start on the following day.

We were all silent while he spoke, and, in spite of his apparent timidity, he was asked to repeat this extremely interesting piece of news. He repeated what he had said, adding, however, that he had been sitting at the