“As soon as you do so, you will sound a trumpet, and the men will then move forward, shouting so as to drive the game before them.  As the peasants tell me there are many wolves and bears in the forest, I hope that you will inclose some of them in your cordon, which will be about five miles from end to end.  With the horse you will have a hundred and thirty men, so that there will be a man every sixty or seventy yards.  That is too wide a space at first, but, as you close in, the distances will rapidly lessen, and they must make up, by noise, for the scantiness of their numbers.  If they find the animals are trying to break through, they can discharge their pieces; but do not let them do so otherwise, as it would frighten the animals too soon, and send them flying out all along the open side of the semicircle.”

It was more than two hours before the whole of the beaters were in position.  Just before they had started, the king had requested Captain Jervoise to remain with him and the officers who had accompanied him, five in number.  They had been posted, a hundred yards apart, at the edge of the forest.  Charlie was the first officer left behind as the troop moved through the forest, and it seemed to him an endless time before he heard a faint shout, followed by another and another, until, at last, the man stationed next to him repeated the signal.  Then they moved forward, each trying to obey the orders to march straight ahead.

For some time, nothing was heard save the shouts of the men, and then Charlie made out some distant shots, far in the wood, and guessed that some animals were trying to break through the lines.  Then he heard the sound of firing directly in front of him.  This continued for some time, occasionally single shots being heard, but more often shots in close succession.  Louder and louder grew the shouting, as the men closed in towards a common point, and, in half an hour after the signal had been given, all met.

“What sport have you had, father?” Harry asked, as he came up to Captain Jervoise.

“We killed seventeen wolves and four bears, with, what is more important, six stags.  I do not know whether we are going to have another beat.”

It soon turned out that this was the king’s intention, and the troops marched along the edge of the forest.  Charlie was in the front of his company, the king with the cavalry a few hundred yards ahead, when, from a dip of ground on the right, a large body of horsemen suddenly appeared.

“Russians!” Captain Jervoise exclaimed, and shouted to the men, who were marching at ease, to close up.

The king did not hesitate a moment, but, at the head of his fifty cavalry, charged right down upon the Russians, who were at least five hundred strong.  The little body disappeared in the melee, and then seemed to be swallowed up.

“Keep together, shoulder to shoulder, men.  Double!” and the company set off at a run.