ve soldiers. In an instant the bayonet was
deep in the chest of his adversary. Wrenching it out, he swung the rile
round and brought the butt down on the skull of the man behind, which it
crushed in like an egg-shell. Staggered by the fury of the onslaught,
those in rear shrank back. Lancey charged them, and drove them out
pell-mell. Finding the bayonet in his way, he wrenched it off, and,
clubbing the rifle, laid about him with it as if it had been a
walking-cane.

There can be no question that insanity bestows temporary and almost
supernatural power. Lancey was for the time insane. Every sweep of the
rifle stretched a man on the ground. There was a wavering band of Turks
around him. The cheers of victorious Russians were ringing in their
ears. Bullets were whizzing, and men were falling. Shelter was
urgently needful. Little wonder, then, that one tall sturdy madman
should drive a whole company before him. The Russians saw him as they
came on, and cheered encouragingly. He replied with savage laughter and
in another moment the Turks were flying before him in all directions.

Then Lancey stopped, let the butt of his rifle drop, leaned against the
corner of a burning house, and drew his left hand across his brow. Some
passing Russians clapped him on the back and cheered as they ran on to
continue the bloody work of ameliorating the condition of the Bulgarian
Christians.

Nearly the whole village was in flames by that time. From the windows
of every house that could yet be held, a continuous fire was kept up.
The Russians replied to it from the streets, rushing, in little bands,
from point to point, where shelter could be found, so as to escape from
the withering shower of lead. Daring men, with apparently charmed
lives, ran straight up in the face of the enemy, sending death in
advance of them as they ran. Others, piling brushwood on a cart, pushed
the mass before them, for the double purpose of sheltering themselves
and of conveying combustibles to the door of the chief house of the
town, to which most of the inhabitants, with a company of Turks, had
retired.

But the brushwood proved a poor defence, for many of those who stooped
behind it, as they ran, suddenly collapsed and dropped, as men are wont
to do when hit in the brain. Still, a few were left to push the cart
forward. Smoke disconcerted the aim of the defenders to some extent,
and terror helped to make the firing wild and non-effective.