The Russian Ensign Was
Therefore Committed To One Of The Sailors, Who Took His Station At
The Stern Of The Boat.
We gave particular instructions to the
captain of the brigantine, and when all was ready, the General and
I, with our respective servants, got into the boat, and were slowly
rowed towards the shore.
The guards gathered together at the point
for which we were making, but when they saw that our boat went on
without altering her course, THEY CEASED TO STAND VERY STILL; none
of them ran away, or even shrank back, but they looked as if THE
PACK WERE BEING SHUFFLED, every man seeming desirous to change
places with his neighbour. They were still at their post, however,
when our oars went in, and the bow of our boat ran up - well up upon
the beach.
The General was lame by an honourable wound received at Borodino,
and could not without some assistance get out of the boat; I,
therefore, landed the first. My instructions to the captain were
attended to with the most perfect accuracy, for scarcely had my
foot indented the sand when the four six-pounders of the brigantine
quite gravely rolled out their brute thunder. Precisely as I had
expected, the guards and all the people who had gathered about them
gave way under the shock produced by the mere sound of guns, and we
were all allowed to disembark with the least molestation.
We immediately formed a little column, or rather, as I should have
called it, a procession, for we had no fighting aptitude in us, and
were only trying, as it were, how far we could go in frightening
full-grown children.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 307 of 325
Words from 84082 to 84364
of 89094
