apet, caught the
flag as it fell, and _held_ it, right in the face of all the Turkish
guns, while I and another man spliced the pole with our belts. You may
think how the unbelievers let fly at him when they saw him standing
there on the top of the breastwork, just as if he'd been set up for a
mark; and all at once I saw one fellow (an Albanian by his dress, and
you know what deadly shots _they_ are) creep along to the very angle of
the wall, and take steady aim at him!

"I made a spring to drag the colonel down (I was his servant, you know,
and whoever hurt him hurt _me_); but before I could reach him I saw the
flash of the Albanian's piece, and Pavel Petrovitch's cap went spinning
into the air, with a hole right through it just above the forehead. And
what do you think the colonel did? Why, he just snapped his fingers at
the fellow, and called out to him, in some jibber-jabber tongue only fit
to talk to a Turk in:

"'Can't you aim better than that, you fool? If _I_ were your officer,
I'd give you thirty lashes for wasting the government ammunition!'

"Well, as I said, he got the St. George, and of course everbody
congratulated him, and there was a great shaking of hands, and giving of
good wishes, and drinking his health in _mavro tchai_,--that's a horrid
mess of eggs, and scraped cheese, and sour milk, and Moldavian wine,
which these Danube fellows have the impudence to call 'black tea,' as if
it was anything like the good old tea that we Russians drink at home!
(I've always thought, for my part, that tea ought to grow in Russia; for
it's a shame that those Chinese idolaters should have such grand stuff
all to themselves.)

"Well, just in the height of the talk, Pavel Petrovitch takes the cross
off his neck, and holds it out in his hand--just so--and says:

"'Well, gentlemen, you say I'm the coolest man in the regiment, but
perhaps everybody wouldn't agree with you. Now, just to show that I want
nothing but fair play, if I ever meet my match in that way, I'll give
him this cross of mine!'

"Now, among the officers who stood around him was a young fellow who had
lately joined--a quiet, modest lad, quite a boy to look at, with light
curly hair, and a face as smooth as any lady's. But when he heard what
the colonel said, he looked up suddenly, and there came a flash from his
clear blue eyes like the sun striking a bayonet. And then I thought to
myself:

"'It wont be an easy thing to match Pavel Petrovitch; but i