The Hickman courier. [volume] (Hickman, Ky.) 1859-current, 1878-01-18


tions The miracles were wrought. The
Evangelists wrote what they had seen.
Their pens were guided and controlled
by God. The books containing such
records are true, and are the inspired
World OF God Christian InteHigencer.
Incidents of the Siege of PIevna.
Skobeleffs 5 wound was not dangerous,
but would have been were it not on both
occasions when he was struck he was
wearing a thick double sheepskin coat,
which turned the rifle ball and prevented
the fragment of shell doing more than
| rip the flesh Skobeleff rode away to
visit the czar, and 7, having breakfasted
with his staff, sailed out with its chief,
Colonel Keroupat Kline, to view the po-
sitions 50 gallantly taken and so obsti-
and morning of the 10th. As / scram-
bled knee-deed in mud up the steep sides
of the q" Monte Vert" l could not won
der to myself how under the pitiless fire
I
succeeded at all in making good their
hold on the summit Arriving on the
crest l had glimpse at a corner of the
Turkish position, but as it was dangerous
work to lift even for a moment ones
| head above the cover of the pit, no view
could be got worth describing. Still,
what I did witness and will endeavor to
tell you of, was one of those little episodes
of war which strike home its terrors to
the heart more deeply than days whole
sale slaughter From the Turkish lines
stole out five men, crouching, creeping
and running over the broken ground be-
tween the lines toward a field of maize,
distant some eight hundred yards from
their starting point. Their rifles We're
in their left hands, and every new and
then, thinking themselves safe from Rus
sion ken, they would stop as though to
see who of them should 60 on first, and
then went on again all of them together.
Their object evidently was to gain a corn
field about a hundred and fifty yards
from the spot where Keroupat Kline and
] were lying and gather the standing
ears, then make back with them to
feast on with their comrades in their
trenches. But, alas for them, in this
very cornheld the Russians had their
rife-pits-it was all over in less time
than it takes to write As the five on
hands and knees got amid the corn the
Russians leaped from the trenches in
which they were hid, and, in a moment, |
four Turks were quivering under their |
bayonets. The fifth had presence of
mind enough to fling from him his rifle, !
and such was his agony of fear and the |
strength lent by it that the Pisse iiess
some fifty yards. He was pdshed down |
with the butt end of a rifle and brought /
in a prisoner He told us that hunger |
had compelled some fifty facing US with
in the Turkish trenches to draw lots OF |
five as to who should go out and gather |
from the field in their front bags full of /
ears of Indian corn, and to these unlucEy !
five the chance had fallen.
In the earlier part of the day whilst l
was breakfasting with the staff, as already
mentioned, a little detail of war occurred |
which, though of ne Importance in itself, |
serves 10 mark the character of war, and |
brings cut its sufferings and the csllous-
ness to the fate of others which it must |
of necessity engender even in the kindest
of dispositions.
young, good looking sub-lieutenant |
of some twenty years or so presented |
himself with military salute before eur
breakfast table, holding in his hand his
coat-tail riddled with bullet-holes, and |
explained that as junior artillery officer
of his battery he had been ordered 10 |
climb tree to direct and mark the fire /
on a newly-constructed redoubt thrown |
up by the Turks and out of sight from
the ground level, that he had been up
there two hours, the latter part of which |
he had been the target of some four
Turkish sharpshooters, who were gradu- |
ally improving their practice, and he
thought he had enough of it and begged |
to be relieved. Everybody laughed as
the colonel chief of the staff ordered him |
back again to his post, to remain until |
he fell or was called down. And as l |
laughed, too, in chorus, not quite under
standing for the moment what the matter |
was-sf life and death, he gave me as he
took himself off to obey, an "Et tu,
Brute" look that 1 shall not forget. AS |
we rode back, few drops of rain began
to fall, and biting cold wind from the |
east to make itself felt even through the |
warm furs in which 1 was wrapped An |
hour later and the whole country had |
changed so as to be no longer recogniza-
BILE, the few drops having increased to a
steady downpour of driving rain and |
sleet, turning the hollows of the roads |
into very lakes, and the sides of the hills |
into miry-sodden mud, in which the
lightest treading horse sank to the knees.
Cor. London Standard.