"I am afraid I will be killed!" I returned, quite honestly. He laughed again, then sheathed his saber and stepped forward until he was straddling the wheelbarrow, almost as if he meant to piss on me. Then he bent down, planted his shoulder in my gut, wrapped one arm around my waist, and lifted me up as if I were a sack of coffee-beans being taken from a ship’s hold. In a moment I was upside down over his shoulder, watching his spurs glide above the marble floor as he bore me across the room with immense strides. I expected to see pools of blood and severed limbs, too, but the worst was the occasional burst of beer-vomit. The battle still raged all around, but the shouting was mixed with a good deal of hilarity. Blade still rang against blade, but where sword-blows struck home, they did so with slapping noises; the Russians were beating their foes with the flats of their sabers.