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."

It is not to our purpose to follow the victorious steps of Suwarrow
through the campaigns in which he was engaged; they are now a part
of history, and won for him that military glory after which his heart
panted from his early boyhood. Decoration after decoration, honor
after honor: title after title, marked the high estimation in which
the services of this intrepid soldier were held by his sovereign;