The man standing in the middle of the small, low-roofed chamber was his wonderful chief, Osman Pasha. Tall, strongly built, and handsome, he formed a striking contrast to his young colleague. A loose, dark-blue cloak hung from his shoulders, and the inevitable fez surmounted his powerful brow. A short black beard concealed a chin of unusual firmness, and from time to time a nervous movement of a somewhat dusky hand brushed the hair aside with a rustling sound. The nose was large and inclined downwards with a heavy curve, while beneath bushy brows a pair of steadfast black eyes looked sorrowfully forth upon the world. There was determination and a great energy in those eyes, despite their wan thoughtfulness.
He who sat at the table we know. It was Theodore Trist. Clean and carefully shaven, he was literally clad in rags; but his face had lost its old dreaminess, its vague meekness of demeanour. A clear light in his eyes, the set of his lips, conveyed in some indefinite way that this man was in his element. Despite his hollow cheeks and sunken temples, in the midst of that heavy reek of death and blood, this Englishman was visibly happy.
“Do you want,” Osman was saying, “to see what we can do with our triple ranks of Berdans?”
“Yes.”
“Tomorrow Skobeleff will attack the redoubt again. He has positive orders to take it at any cost.”
“Will he take it?” asked Trist.
Osman turned with a smile towards Tefik, who was lighting a second cigarette. The chief of staff shrugged his shoulders, and threw away the end of the last cigarette with a sideward movement of his lips.
Osman shrugged his shoulders in precisely the same way.
“Who knows?” he said quietly. “If they value the redoubt at four thousand lives, they might do it.”
Trist set his two elbows on the table and looked up at the speaker’s face with calm speculative scrutiny. He did not offer him a chair, because he knew that Osman rarely sat down. The great soldier had no time for rest.
“Skobeleff,” said the Englishman, “is a great man, but Napoleon would have been in here some time ago.”
Tefik moved slightly, and looked towards his two companions with a vague smile. He knew nothing of Napoleon the Great and his method of making war. Moreover, he did not care to know.
It was the chief of staff who finally broke a silence of some duration.
“Listen, Osman,” he said in a soft, dreamy voice. “I hear the sound of a new gun. The Russians have mounted another big one. We are going to get it very hot.”
All three raised their heads and listened. After the lapse of a minute a dull thud broke upon their ears. The Russians had mounted a new siege gun, and Plevna was beginning its career as a target for a steadily increasing army of artillery. There was no indecent haste in loading or sponging. It was excellent practice for the gunners, and through the next three months the sound of heavy firing never quite ceased night or day. At times, by way of variety, the whole of the artillery combined in directing its fire upon a spot previously selected. But the grim game was not all on one side, for Plevna pluckily returned blow for blow.
“There is,” said an expert at Russian headquarters, “a European directing those guns—probably a German.”
But Trist never sighted a single shot, although he did not withhold his advice.
“I know where it is,” said Tefik at last. “Perhaps we can get at it.”
And he left the room quietly.
The two men remaining there did not speak for some time. Trist was occupied with a large sheet of paper covered with a fine writing, and showing columns of figures. Osman had brought this to him, and was now evidently waiting for it. The Englishman skimmed up the columns with the celerity of a banker’s clerk, muttering the additions in his native language. The hand that held the pen was brown and scarred with manual labour, for Trist had worked in the trenches day and night.
“Yes,” he said at length, looking up in a businesslike, curt way, which showed that between these men there was some bond of comradeship. “Those figures are all right. At an extremity you could even reduce the allowance of soup, could you not?”
The soldier shook his head with a wan and momentary smile.
“Scarcely,” he replied. “It is getting colder every day. If we want to hold out we must keep up the hearts of the men, and if there is nothing to press them upwards all our hearts drop into our stomachs, my friend.”
“There is more clothing to be had. We get a fresh supply day by day,” said Trist, with an uneasy sigh.
Osman winced. The meaning was only too clear, for the time had long since gone by for men to
