When, in the red rays of the sinking sun, the binnacle flamed like a pillar of gold, a sudden revulsion of feeling seized me. Would I never more live with the free wandering people of the Transbaikal? Was I back again in this artificial life from whose trammels I thought that I had for ever emancipated myself? Would I never again press the hand of Serge Ivanovitch or Nicolai' Mikhailavitch, or give orders to my faithful Philipoff, or listen to the entrancing old Malorussky melodies in the u Sobranie,'5 or see the Cossacks dance the gay u Kazatchok "? With a desire that was almost pain, I longed for the society of the rude friendly Cossacks, in whose sad superstitions and songs and mysticism there was so much to remind me of my own folk, the merry, melancholy Gael. I longed for old Mukden. I hated these snug berths with their immaculate linen. I pined for the sleep in the open air with the solemn moon overhead, the free wind of heaven blowing on my face, the large vague sounds of the night coming wafted gently like fairies' whispers o'er the dim swaying harvest fields, the tethered horses nosing around in the vicinity, sometimes tumbling awkwardly to the ground asleep, sometimes kicking and whinnying and raising an uproar fit to wake the whole "sotnia." I heard again the reassuring sound of the sentry's footsteps, I heard him calm the frightened horses with soft musical Slavonic sounds such as a mother might use to soothe a fretful babe. Again was I lulled to sleep by the gentle, continuous munching of my faithful pony " Sobersides."
Neither the deep philosophy of M. Naudeau nor the sparkling wit of Dick Little sufficed to reconcile me to my sumptuous imprisonment, and, as late that night I sat on the deck of the Awa Marti while the foamflecked sea rushed past like a flood in the calm radiance of the electric lights on board, I thought, with a heart full of unutterable sadness, of the bivouac, the night alarm, the joyous ride with the Transbaikalians in the red of the morning, the creak of leather, the tinkle of steel, the clickety-clack of the horses' hoofs, and sorrowfully reflected that in all probability I would never see those days again, that never again would I gaze so close on the glorious face of danger. I felt that the leaden hand of peace had descended on me, that the most interesting chapter in my life had come to an end, that, like all picturesque and interesting things, the Cossacks were coming to an end too.
After having tasted of the horror and the sublimity of war I was to return to the contemplation of — nay, more, unfortunately, to an active part in — that sordid, eternal squabble for pence which they call peace — a squabble in which there is no red cross, no quarter, no regard for age or sex, no truth, no dignity, not a single redeeming feature.
Farewell, O Cossacks of the Transbaikal! I shall always hear your melancholy songs resounding in the infinite immensities of Russia. I shall always hear the hoof-beats of your little ponies ringing in boundless waste places. But yourselves I shall never see again-
It may seem a humiliating and unmanly confession to make, but I must confess that my anguish was such that, instead of going to bed like the good boitrgeois I now was, I sat for half the night on that cold deserted deck, weeping in secret, like a child.
Our companions in the first-class are all wounded Japanese officers going home to places whose names sound like music — Omori, Arima, Oiso, Hanada, Nara, Tosa, Mito, Orio. They wear spotless white ''kimonos," with a small red cross on the shoulder, and they look far better in them than they would in foreign dress while, on the other hand, the Russian wounded look in their "kimonos" like men in their night-shirts. Small, slender, beardless, gentle, young, moving noiselessly about in their "waraji" or straw sandals, they remind one of Franciscan nuns. Two years ago I would have laughed with contempt if you had told me that these men would hurl headlong from the city of Mukden an army of three hundred and fifty thousand Russians.