e sounds of firing and where the
smoke was thickest.

A volley was heard, and some bullets whistled past, while others plashed
against something. The Cossacks and Dolokhov galloped after Petya into
the gateway of the courtyard. In the dense wavering smoke some of the
French threw down their arms and ran out of the bushes to meet the
Cossacks, while others ran down the hill toward the pond. Petya was
galloping along the courtyard, but instead of holding the reins he waved
both his arms about rapidly and strangely, slipping farther and farther
to one side in his saddle. His horse, having galloped up to a campfire
that was smoldering in the morning light, stopped suddenly, and Petya
fell heavily on to the wet ground. The Cossacks saw that his arms and
legs jerked rapidly though his head was quite motionless. A bullet had
pierced his skull.

After speaking to the senior French officer, who came out of the house
with a white handkerchief tied to his sword and announced that
they surrendered, Dolokhov dismounted and went up to Petya, who lay
motionless with outstretched arms.

"Done for!" he said with a frown, and went to the gate to meet Denisov
who was riding toward him.

"Killed?" cried Denisov, recognizing from a distance the unmistakably
lifeless attitude--very familiar to him--in which Petya's body was
lying.

"Done for!" repeated Dolokhov as if the utterance of these words
afforded him pleasure, and he went quickly up to the prisoners, who
were surrounded by Cossacks who had hurried up. "We won't take them!" he
called out to Denisov.

Denisov did not reply; he rode up to Petya, dismounted, and with
trembling hands turned toward himself the bloodstained, mud-bespattered
face which had already gone white.

"I am used to something sweet. Raisins, fine ones... take them all!" he
recalled Petya's words. And the Cossacks looked round in surprise at the
sound, like the yelp of a dog, with which Denisov turned away, walked to
the wattle fence, and seized hold of it.

Among the Russian prisoners rescued by Denisov and Dolokhov was Pierre
Bezukhov.

CHAPTER XII

During the whole of their march from Moscow no fresh orders had been
issued by the French authorities concerning the party of prisoners
among whom was Pierre. On the twenty-second of October that party was
no longer with the same troops and baggage trains with which it had left
Moscow. Half the wagons laden with hardtack that had traveled the firs