turning to Dolokhov.
'Why not?' Dolokhov answered absently, scrutinizing the face of the French drummer boy. 'Have you had that youngster with you long?' he asked Denisov.
'He was taken today but he knows nothing. I'm keeping him with me.'
'Yes, and where do you put the others?' inquired Dolokhov.
'Where? I send them away and take a weceipt for them,' shouted Denisov, suddenly flushing. 'And I say boldly that I have not a single man's life on my conscience. Would it be difficult for you to send thirty or thwee hundwed men to town under escort, instead of staining- I speak bluntly--staining the honor of a soldier?'
'That kind of amiable talk would be suitable from this young count of sixteen,' said Dolokhov with cold irony, 'but it's time for you to drop it.'
'Why, I've not said anything! I only say that I'll certainly go with you,' said Petya shyly.
'But for you and me, old fellow, it's time to drop these amenities,' continued Dolokhov, as if he found particular pleasure in speaking of this subject which irritated Denisov. 'Now, why have you kept this lad?' he went on, swaying his head. 'Because you are sorry for him! Don't we know those 'receipts' of yours? You send a hundred men away, and thirty get there. The rest either starve or get killed. So isn't it all the same not to send them?'
The esaul, screwing up his light-colored eyes, nodded approvingly.
'That's not the point. I'm not going to discuss the matter. I do not wish to take it on my conscience. You say they'll die. All wight. Only not by my fault!'
Dolokhov began laughing.
'Who has told them not to capture me these twenty times over? But if they did catch me they'd string me up to an aspen tree, and with all your chivalry just the same.' He paused. 'However, we must get to work. Tell the Cossack to fetch my kit. I have two French uniforms in it. Well, are you coming with me?' he asked Petya.
'I? Yes, yes, certainly!' cried Petya, blushing almost to tears and glancing at Denisov.
While Dolokhov had been disputing with Denisov what should be done with prisoners, Petya had once more felt awkward and restless; but again he had no time to grasp fully what they were talking about. 'If grown-up, distinguished men think so, it must be necessary and right,' thought he. 'But above all Denisov must not dare to imagine that I'll obey him and that he can order me about. I will certainly go to the French camp with Dolokhov. If he can, so can I!'
And to all Denisov's persuasions, Petya replied that he too was accustomed to do everything accurately and not just anyhow, and that he never considered personal danger.
'For you'll admit that if we don't know for sure how many of them there are... hundreds of lives may depend on it, while there are only two of us. Besides, I want to go very much and certainly will go, so don't hinder me,' said he. 'It will only make things worse...'
CHAPTER IX
Having put on French greatcoats and shakos, Petya and Dolokhov rode to the clearing from which Denisov had reconnoitered the French camp, and emerging from the forest in pitch darkness they descended into the hollow. On reaching the bottom, Dolokhov told the Cossacks accompanying him to await him there and rode on at a quick trot along the road to the bridge. Petya, his heart in his mouth with excitement, rode by his side.
'If we're caught, I won't be taken alive! I have a pistol,' whispered he.
'Don't talk Russian,' said Dolokhov in a hurried whisper, and at that very moment they heard through the darkness the challenge: 'Qui vive?'* and the click of a musket.
*'Who goes there?'
The blood rushed to Petya's face and he grasped his pistol.
'Lanciers du 6-me,'* replied Dolokhov, neither hastening nor slackening his horse's pace.
*'Lancers of the 6th Regiment.'
The black figure of a sentinel stood on the bridge.
'Mot d'ordre.'*
*'Password.'
Dolokhov reined in his horse and advanced at a walk.
'Dites donc, le colonel Gerard est ici?'* he asked.
*'Tell me, is Colonel Gerard here?'
'Mot d'ordre,' repeated the sentinel, barring the way and not replying.
'Quand un officier fait sa ronde, les sentinelles ne demandent pas le mot d'ordre...' cried Dolokhov suddenly flaring up and riding straight at the sentinel. 'Je vous demande si le colonel est ici.'*
*'When an officer is making his round, sentinels don't ask him for the password.... I am asking you if the colonel is here.'
And without waiting for an answer from the sentinel, who had stepped aside, Dolokhov rode up the incline at a walk.
Noticing the black outline of a man crossing the road, Dolokhov stopped him and inquired where the commander and officers were. The man, a soldier with a sack over his shoulder, stopped, came close up to Dolokhov's horse, touched it with his hand, and explained simply and in a friendly way that the commander and the officers were higher up the hill to the right in the courtyard of the farm, as he called the landowner's house.
