Woe to the “Auburn Hair!” After the Battle—Prowling Villains Punished.  
When the white flag was seen a loud shout went up from the Russian army. Then a party of officers rode forward, and two Turkish horsemen were seen advancing. They stated that Osman himself was coming to treat with the Russians.
 
The spot on which they stood was covered with the grim relics of battle. The earth had been uptorn by exploding shells. Here lay a horse groaning and struggling in its agony. Close to it lay an ox, silently bleeding to death, his great, round, patient eyes looking mournfully at the scene around him. Close by, was a cart with a dead horse lying in the yoke as he had fallen, and a Turkish soldier, stretched alongside, whose head had been carried away by a cannon shot. Under the wagon was a wounded man, and close to him four others, who, drained of nearly all their life-blood, lay crouched together in helplessness, with the hoods of their ragged grey overcoats drawn down on their faces. These latter gazed at the murky sky in listless indifference, or at what was going on in a sort of weary surprise. Among them was Nicholas Naranovitsch.
 
Russian surgeons were already moving about the field of battle, doing what they could, but their efforts were trifling compared with the vast necessity.
 
At last there was a shout of “Osman!” “He comes!”
 
“We will give him a respectful reception,” exclaimed one Russian officer, in what is supposed by some to be the “gallant spirit of true chivalry.”
 
“That we will,” cried another; “we must all salute him, and the soldiers must present arms.”
 
“He is a great soldier,” exclaimed a third, “and has made a heroic defence.”
 
Even Skobeleff himself seems to have been carried away by the feeling of the moment, if we may credit report, for he is said to have exclaimed—
 
“He is the greatest general of the age, for he has saved the honour of his country: I will proffer him my hand and tell him so.”
 
“So,” thought I, when afterwards meditating on this subject, “the Turks have for centuries proved themselves to be utterly unworthy of self-government; they have shown themselves to be ignorant of the first principles of righteousness,—meum and tuum; they (or rather their rulers) have violated their engagements and deceived those who trusted them; have of late repudiated their debts, and murdered, robbed, violated, tortured those who differed from them in religious opinions, as is generally admitted,—nevertheless now, because one of their generals has shown somewhat superior ability to the rest, holding in check a powerful enemy, and exhibiting, with his men, a degree of bull-dog courage which, though admirable in itself, all history proves to be a common characteristic of all nations—that ‘honour,’ which the country never possessed, is supposed to have been ‘saved’!”
 
All honour to the brave, truly, but when I remember the butcheries that are admitted, by friend and foe of the Turk, to have been committed on the Russian wounded by the army of Plevna (and which seem to have been conveniently forgotten at this dramatic incident of the surrender),—when I reflect on the frightful indifference of Osman Pasha to his own wounded, and the equally horrible disregard of the same hapless wounded by the Russians after they entered Plevna,—I cannot but feel that a desperate amount of error is operating here, and that multitudes of mankind, especially innocent, loving, and gentle mankind, to say nothing of tender, enthusiastic, love-blinded womankind, are to some extent deceived by the false ring of that which is not metal, and the falser glitter of a tinsel which is anything but gold.
 
However, Osman did not come after all. He had been wounded, and the Russian generals were obliged to go to a neighbouring cottage to transact the business of surrender.
 
As the cavalcade rode away in the direction of the cottage referred to, a Russian surgeon turned aside to aid a wounded man. He was a tall strapping trooper. His head rested on the leg of his horse, which lay dead beside him. He could not have been more than twenty years of age, if so much. He had carefully wrapped his cloak round him. His carbine and sabre were drawn close to his side, as if to protect the weapons which it had always been his pride to keep bright and clean. He was a fresh handsome lad, with courage and loveableness equally stamped upon his young brow. He opened his eyes languidly as the doctor attended to him.
 
“Come, my fine fellow, keep up your heart,” said the doctor tenderly; “you will perhaps—that is to say, the ambulance-wagons will be round immediately, and—”
 
“Thank you,” interrupted the trooper quietly, “God’s blessing rest upon you. I know what you mean.—Look, sir.”
 
He tried to take a locket from his neck as he spoke, but could not. The doctor gently assisted him. “See,” he said, “take this to Dobri Petroff—the scout. You know him? Every one knows dashing Dobri!”
 
“I know him. Well?”
 
“Tell him to give it to her—he knows who—and—and—say it has kept me in—in heaven when sometimes it seemed to me as if I had got into hell.”
 
“From whom?” asked the doctor, anxiously, as the youth’s head sank forward, and the terrible pallor of approaching death came on.
 
“From André—”
 
Alas! alas for Maria with the auburn hair!
 
The doctor rose. His services were no longer needed. Mounting his horse, he rode away.
 
The ground over which he galloped was strewn with weapons. The formal surrender had been made, and each Turk, obeying literally the order to lay down his arms, had deposited his rifle in the mud where he stood.
 
That night a faint light shone through the murky clouds, and dimly illumined the grim battle-field.
 
It was deserted by all but the dead and dying, with now and then a passing picket or fatigue-party. As the night advanced, and the cold became piercing, even these seemed to have finally retired from the ghastly scene. Towards morning the moon rose high, and, piercing the clouds, at times lit up the whole battle-field. Ah! there was many a pale countenance turned wistfully on the moon that night, gazing at it until the eyes became fixed in death. There was one countenance, which, deadly white, and gashed by a Turkish sabre, had been ruddy with young life in the morning. It was that of Nicholas Naranovitsch. He lay on his back near his dead horse, and close to a heap of slaughtered men. He was so faint and so shattered by sabre-cuts and bullets as to be utterly unable to move anything but his eyes. Though almost in a state of stupor, he retained sufficient consciousness to observe what went on around him. The night, or rather the early morning, had become very still, but it was not silent, for deep sighs and low moanings, as of men suffering from prolonged and weary pain, struck on his listening ear. Now and then some wretch, unable to bear his misery, would make a desperate effort to rise, only, howev............