buzzing suddenly resounded behind the
regiment, and a Russian aeroplane flew over the heads of the men like
a drenched bird. As the aeroplane rose higher and higher, the soldiers
watched the distance between it and the small black dot far up in the
sky grow smaller and smaller.

Voices were now heard from the ranks and when the black dot was
rapidly beginning to grow smaller, sinking, as it were, in the sky and
approaching the horizon, those voices became loud and gay.

"He don't like it, what! See him run for his life! Well done! Fine
fellows!" ... was heard along the ranks.

The soldiers suddenly became lively and for a moment forgot about
themselves and the uncertain fate that was in store for them.

"Why not put you on that aeroplane, Yermilich!... You'd be quite handy
at it, wouldn't you!" the soldiers were poking fun at each other.

All at once a confused many-voiced cry and a disorderly crackling of
rifles was heard ahead of them; then a crowd of soldiers came running
from that direction, at first singly, then in groups, and finally in a
mass. They belonged to another regiment of the same division. One
could discern from afar their wide-open eyes, rounded mouths, and an
expression of frantic terror on their pale faces.

The officers of the Ashkadar regiment, waving their swords and yelling
something indistinct, were running over the washed-out field to meet
the running men, but the grey crowd momentarily knocked them down,
trampled upon them, completely covered them, and mingled itself with
the Ashkadar men. And everything that, but a while ago, was so clear
and important now became confused and meaningless.

Like the waters that wash off a dam pierced in but a single point,
even so did the running soldiers confuse and sweep away the regiment.
The Ashkadar men themselves were partly infected by the panic and
began to run they knew not why, apparently possessed by that
mysterious power which is transmitted from man to man and which pushes
one from behind and compels him to run farther and farther, aimlessly
and blindly.

The entire mass of men started down the slope, but having encountered
the battery with a crew yelling and waving their hands, it swerved
aside. Then as this mass ran into the regular line of soldiers, who
were rapidly coming to meet them, their rifles carried at charge, it
threw itself to one side, then to the other, then backwards and
forwards and finally scattered over the fields, filli