Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 3.djvu/377

 ADVANCE TO THE BELBEC. 351 that, at a distance of some liundrcd of yards CHAP. in front of theni, there was a crowd. At sight of the strangers the crowd began to fly, hut after a while, some of the people turned round, and, little by little, were brought to attend to the beckoning and the encouraging signs with which they were met. After a while, the fugitive villagers — for these were the people who formed the crowd — began to grow somewhat less fear- ful ; and at length, though often halting in doubt, they came nearer, and then again nearer;" but even when they had evidently made up their minds to accept the proffered intercourse, they yet stopped from time to time that they might make prostrations and gestures in token of submission. These poor people were lurking about the neigh- Ijourhood of the village in order to see or make out what was going to befall their homes. Even apart from kind motives, the Englishmen saw the advantage of reassuring the villagers, and an interpreter was fetched. When the people came to understand that no harm would be done to them or their property they became very grateful, and some of them ventured back into their vil- lage. From these villagers the English first came to hear of the panic which had seized the Rus- sian army in the midniglit after the battle ; and it was here, too (as told in a former page), that the simple natives excused their content by saying that for three generations they had lived in peace under the Czars.