appeared into the forest, and Count Orlóv-Denísov, having seen Grékov off, returned,
shivering from the freshness of the early dawn and excited by what he had undertaken on his
own responsibility, and began looking at the enemy camp, now just visible in the deceptive
light of dawn and the dying campfires. Our columns ought to have begun to appear on an
open declivity to his right. He looked in that direction, but though the columns would have
been visible quite far off, they were not to be seen. It seemed to the count that things were
beginning to stir in the French camp, and his keen-sighted adjutant confirmed this.
"Oh, it is really too late," said Count Orlóv, looking at the camp.
As often happens when someone we have trusted is no longer before our eyes, it suddenly seemed quite clear and obvious to him that the sergeant was an impostor, that he had lied, and that the whole Russian attack would be ruined by the absence of those two regiments, which he would lead away heaven only knew where. How could one capture a commander in chief from among such a mass of troops!
"I am sure that rascal was lying," said the count.
"They can still be called back," said one of his suite, who like Count Orlóv felt distrustful of the adventure when he looked at the enemy's camp.
"Eh? Really . . . what do you think? Should we let them go on or not?"
"Will you have them fetched back?"
"Fetch them back, fetch them back!" said Count Orlov with sudden determination, looking at his watch. "It will be too late. It is quite light."
And the adjutant galloped through the forest after Grékov. When Grékov returned, Count Orlóv-Denísov, excited both by the abandoned attempt and by vainly awaiting the infantry columns that still did not appear, as well as by the proximity of the enemy, resolved to advance. All his men felt the same excitement.
"Mount!" he commanded in a whisper. The men took their places and crossed themselves. . . . "Forward, with God's aid!"
"Hurrah-ah-ahl" reverberated in the forest, and the Cossack companies, trailing their lances and advancing one after another as if poured out of a sack, dashed gaily across the brook toward the camp.
One desperate, frightened yell from the first French soldier who saw the Cossacks, and all who were in the camp, undressed and only just waking up, ran off in all directions, abandoning cannons, muskets, and horses.
Had the Cossacks pursued the French, without heeding what was behind and around them, they would have captured Murat and everything there. That was what the officers desired. But it was impossible to make the Cossacks budge when once they had got booty and prisoners. None of them listened to orders. Fifteen hundred prisoners and thirty-eight guns were taken on the spot, besides standards and (what seemed most important to the Cossacks) horses, saddles, horsecloths, and the like.
All this had to be dealt with, the prisoners and guns secured, the booty divided not without some shouting and even a little fighting among themselves and it was on this that the Cossacks all busied themselves.
The French, not being farther pursued, began to recover themselves: they formed into detachments and began firing. Orlóv-Denísov, still waiting for the other columns to arrive, advanced no further.
Meantime, according to the dispositions which said that "the First Column will march" and so on, the infantry of the belated columns, commanded by Bennigsen and directed by Toll, had started in due order and, as always happens, had got somewhere, but not to their appointed places. As always happens the men, starting cheerfully, began to halt; murmurs were heard, there was a sense of confusion, and finally a backward movement. Adjutants and generals galloped about, shouted, grew angry, quarreled, said they had come quite wrong and were late, gave vent to a little abuse, and at last gave it all up and went forward, simply to get somewhere. "We shall get somewhere or other!" And they did indeed get somewhere, though not to their right places; a few eventually even got to their right place, but too late to be of any use and only in time to be fired at. Toll, who in this battle played the part of Weyrother at Austerlitz, galloped assiduously from place to place, finding everything upside down everywhere. Thus he stumbled on Bagovút's corps in a wood when it was already broad daylight, though the corps should long before have joined Orlóv-Denísov. Excited and vexed by the failure and supposing that someone must be responsible for it, Toll galloped up to the commander of the corps and began upbraiding him severely, saying that he ought to be shot. General Bagovút, a fighting old soldier of placid temperament, being
