"'I recognize, you know. You are her Russian youngster. You were
very grateful. I call on you to pay the debt. Pay it, I say, with one
liberating shot. You are a man of honour. I have not even a broken
sabre. All my being recoils from my own degradation. You know me.'

"Tomassov said nothing.

"'Haven't you got the soul of a warrior?' the Frenchman asked in an
angry whisper, but with something of a mocking intention in it.

"'I don't know,' said poor Tomassov.

"What a look of contempt that scarecrow gave him out of his unquenchable
eyes. He seemed to live only by the force of infuriated and impotent
despair. Suddenly he gave a gasp and fell forward writhing in the
agony of cramp in all his limbs; a not unusual effect of the heat of a
camp-fire. It resembled the application of some horrible torture. But
he tried to fight against the pain at first. He only moaned low while we
bent over him so as to prevent him rolling into the fire, and muttered
feverishly at intervals: '_Tuez moi, tuez moi_...' till, vanquished by
the pain, he screamed in agony, time after time, each cry bursting out
through his compressed lips.

"The adjutant woke up on the other side of the fire and started swearing
awfully at the beastly row that Frenchman was making.

"'What's this? More of your infernal humanity, Tomassov,' he yelled
at us. 'Why don't you have him thrown out of this to the devil on the
snow?'