After a forced march of four days he reached Ismail at the head of his troops.  A few days were spent in the preparations necessary for an assault.  When all was ready, orders were given:  the column marched forward at midnight.  At that moment a courier rode up at full speed with dispatches from Potemkin.  Suwarrow was no sooner apprised of his arrival than he guessed with his usual quickness the nature of the dispatches, and he determined not to receive them till the fate of the enterprise was decided.  He ordered his horse to be brought round to the door of his tent; he sprang on it and galloped off, without seeming to observe the courier.  After a desperate resistance the Turks at length gave way, and Ismail fell into the hands of the Russians.  With his staff gathered eagerly round Suwarrow to offer their congratulations, the eyes of the Marshal fell upon the officer who bore the dispatches.

“Who are you, brother?” said he.

“It is I,” replied the courier, “who brought dispatches from Prince Potemkin yesterday evening.”

“What!” exclaimed Suwarrow, with affected passion,—­“what! you bring me news from my sovereign!—­you have been here since yesterday, and I have not yet received the dispatches!” Then threatening the officer for his negligence, he handed the dispatch to one of his generals and bade him read it aloud.

A more striking scene can scarcely be conceived.  There was deep silence as the dispatch was opened.  Suwarrow and his companions in victory listened with breathless interest.  Every danger which they had braved and surmounted was enumerated one after the other.  It was urged that an enterprise undertaken in the midst of a winter even more than usually severe, must be disastrous, and that it was absolutely preposterous to think it possible to make an impression on a fortress furnished with 230 pieces of cannon and defended by 43,000 men, the half of whom were Janissaries, with a force that amounted to no more than 28,000—­little more than half their number.  The dispatch ended with a peremptory order for the abandonment of the enterprise.

“Thank God!” exclaimed Suwarrow, as soon as the general had ceased reading, raising his eyes to heaven and crossing himself with devotion, “thank God, Ismail is taken, or I should have been undone!”

There was silence for a moment, as if all participated in the feeling with which Suwarrow glanced at the different situation which would have been his had he not succeeded; every eye was fixed on him, and then a sudden shout of triumph burst through all the ranks.  He then penned the following brief reply:  “The Russian flag flies on the ramparts of Ismail.”