If you haven't already begun article creation

People in the internet marketing community have discovered a new form of marketing web pages and exchanging links, and this method is quickly gaining a large head of steam. The basic system works like this: a person will write a page of content, and then allow a foreign website to publish that content in exchange for a link in a resource box on the page. This idea appeals to both parties for several reasons, which I'll outline.

Article Directories follow the metaphysical law of Reciprocation. What this means in Layman's Terms is: you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours. Both parties get something out of the arrangement, and all is good. If you contrast this particular method of marketing to the more odious method of "scraping content", and you'll quickly see why article directories are considered to be the wave of the future when it comes to interactive and co-operative marketing. Article directories allow for participation by:

1)webmasters who want to use the articles
2)The Webmaster who wrote the article and who receives promotional credit for publishing it
3)The end user who gets high quality content that may not have been available otherwise.

If you haven't already begun article creation, you better get started soon. Right now, the article directory industry is exploding. What better way to promote your website than to write expert articles that make you and your subject matter stand out from the crowd? If you're an excellent writer, you can greatly expand the audience of your website by expanding your reach on the internet. Once you're published on a multitude of websites, you can expect a great deal of direct traffic as well as search engine juice from your many installed articles. If you think about 10 articles that are on over 100 sites, you can quickly see that's 1,000 pages that now link to you with information about you and your website. Done consistently, for months on end, there is no better way of increasing your exposure than authoring and submitting articles on your favorite subjects. If you're not already an expert on a subject, then what better time to start than now?

You are best off writing individual articles for the web directories that do not appear on your own website. Otherwise, you may run into the very real risk of the article directory outranking you for your very own content! Generally article directories are very popular website with a great deal of traffic and link popularity, so they often will rank for your article. If you use original content, you can expect additional traffic that doesn't interfere with your websites traffic at all. Submitting content to article directories is not a miracle cure for all of your ranking blues, but it's a great start for a deserving website on the road to recognition. Only by getting the word out, can you expect others to be able to find the wonderful resource that is your website.

Find What You Really Want in Earning Your Income Online

The internet is a world filled with countless opportunities to make money that there are times when it can be difficult and confusing to choose the right opportunity. Starting a business profitably from the internet income opportunities is simple and easy when you know how. Here are some tips to show you how.

Forget About Getting Rich Instantly From The Internet

No matter how generous the internet is in providing you with all the opportunities to earn your income, you cannot expect to just sit and wait for your income to pour and make you rich instantly. Forget about all those programs that tell you they can make you rich overnight without you having to do anything. They're all just like who wants to make money online; sadly, they scam innocent victims, hopefully not you.

Find What You Really Want in Earning Your Income Online

The ability to earn money online is a given. What is not a given is how you are going to use your ability to make money so you can become successful with your internet business. It helps a lot to pursue a business where your interests are and one that you are passionate about.

When you know what you want, find the right business model to use to start earning from your internet business. If you haven't known yet, there's one proven business model that works for practically anyone who wants to make money online. It cuts all the complexities of earning money from the internet and is in fact considered to be the simplest and easiest business model to start with.

Start Earning From Your Income Opportunities

This is the world of affiliate marketing where you can make a sale without really having to literally sell. Get into niche marketing if you are hell bent to make huge profits from affiliate marketing opportunities. There's so much truth the adage that the money is in the niche. It will give you all the internet income opportunities you may want to explore.

Nowadays, you can find some web hosting companies

It doesn't matter what the economic times are it is always possible to earn a solid internet income. This is hardly considering the number of online users, which has reached a record of two billion users.

If you are a professional accountant, software developer, or web developer, consider advertising your services on the worldwide web. It is not necessary to do assignments only for companies that are located within your country. The worldwide web reaches out to a large audience from various nations.

Nowadays, you can find some web hosting companies, which allow you to create and host your website free or for a small nominal sum each month. Alternatively, you can create a blog using blogger, Wordpress, or other free blogging systems. However, creating your own site is usually better and more effective.

For those who are experts at web development or web designing, there are more opportunities due to the demand and supply of various companies and individuals. Even monetary transactions can be performed without any charges. PayPal, a worldwide wire transfer agency has hundreds of millions of registered users.

You can register with PayPal for free and set up your own online business in a matter of minutes. Advertise your professional services for a chance to earn money. Even if you have a 9-to-5 job, you can still work during the weekends or evening on a part-time basis for earning some extra cash. Some people end up working on a full-time basis after generating a steady income, which is equivalent or more than their 9-to-5 jobs.

To put it briefly, there are ample opportunities of earning internet income by promoting, advertising, and marketing your professional services online. If you have knowledge about web designing or web development, there are more job opportunities on the internet due to the demand and supply for website creation by individuals or companies.

you are going to take a chance.

Have you ever seen someone without a strong opinion on anything? These people usually go through life getting swayed by other people's opinion and let others push them around. Unfortunately there are too many people who want to start an internet business are indecisive and that's what is killing their chances for success online and off?br />
Let's say that you go to a casino and gamble on the roulette tables. And let's say you put $1000 on red. Once the roulette table starts spinning, what does your mind instantly do? It puts unnecessary stress (possibly excitement) onto your body and you worry and wonder for those few seconds, where the ball will land on.

But for those few seconds, does worrying and putting further stress on your body do you any good? I mean, does it actually improve your chances of winning if you worry and worry? Probably not.

Then why do you do it? It's probably because one of the major factors that determines people to succeed on the internet and in life. And that factor is indecisiveness.

Think about it, if you made a decision to play on the roulette table and put your money down on red, you can't take back the money once the ball is rolling. Sure you may win, or you may lose ?so what? You've already made that decision that you are going to take a chance.

Why put your mind and body under more stress by worrying? That's the same thing when you decided to start an internet business. Most people worry and AGONIZE over whether or not they will become successful when they start something new. During the process they break down and give up.

Try doing that when the ball is rolling in the roulette table. You put $1000 on red, let the ball roll for three seconds and then you weren't too sure so you quickly grab back your chips. You just lost your chance of winning, get in big trouble with security, and you'll be embarrassed when everyone looks upon you as a wimp.

This has a lot of the same correlation with your internet business, just think about it. Although worrying is natural for most people, too much worry will only destroy your confidence and decrease your chances for success when you concentrate on the bad things that can happen instead of the goals you have set for yourself.

But just remember the roulette table. You've already decided to start on your internet business, and you can NOT take anything back. All you can do now is try the best you can to make your business successful. Decide now and commit yourself.

to safeguard their security

An internet business that focuses on supplying quality tutorials on the web could be lucrative. Imagine being able to offer courses ranging from how to run a small business, learning to play the guitar and how to pass the physics exam. The range of courses on offer could be huge and could cover every aspect of life ranging from hobbies, education, sports, business, languages and much more.

The great thing about this idea is that your target audience could become international. It would be a good idea to probably focus on English courses and the English speaking world as your marketplace.

This is not a short term business idea but rather one that will keep someone busy for the next ten years at least. Over time it will be possible to amass a huge number of tutorials and simple courses and categorize them neatly into their respective folders.

The aim would be to have only decent and quality tutorials so that new clients would come back and give you repeat business. Long term you can even add video and audio to your site to make it easier for your customers to learn quickly.

Video tutorials will be huge in the future! If a picture speaks a thousand words imagine the power of teaching by video. Unlike normal teachers internet tutorials never get angry or lose their patience. Bright pupils can go at a faster pace whilst others might have to replay a course several times before they master it.

You would need to offer various forms of payment whether it is by cheque or credit cards. People no longer mind paying money on the internet as long as they are sure that their supplier has taken all the steps to safeguard their security.

There are many sites on the internet that do offer free courses but I haven抰 found one yet that has all the courses laid out neatly on a decent website. You would have to build a custom designed website from scratch and improve on it year on year. It is important that the website is designed by a professional so that when new surfers come online they can easily find the course they are looking for.

This business could initially be run from home as there are no stock requirements and your courses are all downloaded from the internet. Longer term if the business grows you might have to move to dedicated offices.

So if you have plenty of capital, love education and are willing to commit for the long term then setting up an internet tutorial website could be both enjoyable and lucrative in the long term.

marketing your corporation

A public characteristic on the World Wide Web is advertisements and, in particular, banner ads. Everybody has seen them; they are rectangle in form and come in distinct styles, designs, layouts etc; but all perform one single universal principle, namely to promote a creation, product or service.

For publishers by the side of least this form of advertisement is hoped to work two purposes. To begin with it is anticipated with the aim of the internet user will see the banner flyer, like either the announcement itself or else the outcome and/or service it is promoting and click on it to visit the publishers website. This measures with the aim of the publisher has gained 1 visitor it would not declare had if with the aim of banner had not existed. It is even better if the visitor buys something from with the aim of place next the banner greatly is a achievement. Secondly the publisher choice expectation with the aim of the banner itself choice register somewhere in the sphere of the visitors sub-conscious so with the aim of it returns to them by the side of a soon day.

However having a flashy, creative and appealing banner will not work out or benefit you if it is not suitably targeted. By targeting I mean on websites with the aim of attracting hits appropriate to the creation, product or service with the aim of you are promoting but getting hits from these sites because a consequence of your banners your page rank choice rise because well. Publishers wish to have their banner exposed in the sphere of 3 ways: Banner exchanging whereby you permit to put on view an alternative companies banner on your place in the sphere of swap representing them displaying yours on theirs; paying other sites to put on view your banner; and paying a banner organization arrangement to put on view your banner on several uncommon sites. All of these can live tremendously effectual in the sphere of marketing your corporation.

However banner ads are but a minute part of promoting your artifact or else service, especially if you are an link. While they aid a very competent aim and declare evolved into single of the chief ways in the sphere of which companies can advantage exposure near are many other methods because well with the aim of, whilst all combined jointly, can carve pass泄 a countless career representing by hand in the sphere of link marketing. It ought to live famous with the aim of the beyond in a row is not scarcely confined to banner ads because the aim can additionally live attributed to text ads because well.

This leads to the inevitable question of which is better; text or banner advertisements? It is questions like these that you need to answer to become a successful affiliate marketer but we don't expect you to figure all this out on your own, don鈥檛 panic, help is at hand. 藴The Secret Art of Successful Affiliate Promotions' can provide you with the knowledge to answer these questions and decide which way of advertising is right for you, text or banner?.

Unfortunately (and commonly) most affiliate marketers do not know how to successfully promote, expose and market the product they have chosen to front therefore their career in affiliate marketing will end before its even really began. Promoting your product is perhaps the most vital aspect of the affiliate marketing niche and should be one of the first researched topics.

To learn more about affiliate marketing, check out the free Successful Affiliate Promotions report. Feel free to distribute this article in any form as long as you include this resource box. You can also include your affiliate link if you sign up at Clickbank Pirate.

What are B2B Trade Leads?

The world is increasingly becoming virtual. From simply connecting with your friend in the farthest corner of the world to actually performing your entire trade online, everything is happening right on the world of the wide web. If you have still not heard of the B2B trading places, welcome to the new era. A B2B trading or Business to Business portal is equivalent to an online market place for commerce and trade of all kinds.

What is B2B?

B2B stands for Business to Business. It is the new language of trade on the web. It works through a number of web portals known as B2B portals which have a list or directory of suppliers, manufacturers and wholesalers of every kind of product in every part of the world. You can find out the suppliers for the product you need just by logging on to these sites. These sites also provide a detailed description of the products along with pictures for a more real inspection. You can also contact the supplier you want to do business with through these websites and place your enquiry or order.

What are B2B Trade Leads?

B2B trade leads are again sort of directories of companies interested in trade of any kind. These leads have a list of manufacturers offering their products open for business and also of people looking for a particular product for the purpose of trade. These leads generally provide a list of suppliers under the title 憃ffer?and the product while the title 憀ooking for?gives you the companies looking for a supply of a particular product.

In this way, B2b Portal and leads provide you a platform for doing almost any kind of trade without getting into a mess. You can execute biggest of transactions online and still not have the trouble of visiting a number of suppliers and then selecting one or vice versa.

RIGHT NOW

These days we are all trying to find interesting ways to make money, whether it's offline or online. But lately these snake oil sellers have blinded us all, people looking to make a quick buck by getting you to buy pieces of garbage they threw together and called a product.

First you need to understand one thing, not all products are created equal. There are interesting ways to make money online that's for sure... but you are going to have to do your research before you open your wallet to any old thing online.

The Internet can be a dangerous place, but I want to help eliminate fears you may have and help you find the right online vehicle to provide ways to make money online.

I have put a list together of 3 simple business ideas you can look into to start making money. These are just a few interesting ways to make money online, so don't think these are your only options; these are just the ones I recommend.

If you don't like the list below, hey that's ok too. The goal here is just to spark some ideas. You can always start with one of these and build on it in the future.

Let's start making money...

1. Affiliate Marketing - This is one strategy that does not take very much effort to get started. You can start a free blog and start promoting products on Clickbank. This strategy is great when combined with effective marketing techniques like article marketing and Google adwords. If this is where you want to start visit warriorforum.com to learn more about this strategy.

2. Internet Direct Marketing - This is becoming more and more popular. This is similar to affiliate marketing except you are part of a company. This has a similar business model as network marketing in the sense of building a team, but the great thing about this vehicle is you don't have to "bother" friends and family, you are generating leads of people looking for you.

3. CPA Offers - This is another interesting way to make money online. A CPA offer is where you get paid for producing an action. This could be generating a lead for someone, getting someone to complete a survey, or purchase a product. There are several CPA networks out there that offer great ways of earning some extra money.

Well I don't want to overwhelm you with too many ideas. That tends to lead to inaction and the goal here is for you to start RIGHT NOW.

The one thing that separates millionaires and "average" people is the first group decided to take action, which is exactly what you should do if you want to make extra income fast.

Take a moment to decide where you want to start and then grab my free e-course below and discover how you can grow your home business in as little as 7 days!

Look forward to talking with you soon.

the sole aim

The hussars ran back to their horses; their voices grew louder and more assured; the stretchers disappeared from sight.

“Well, lad, so you’ve had a sniff of powder!” Vaska Denisov shouted in his ear.

“It’s all over, but I am a coward, yes, I am a coward,” thought Rostov, and with a heavy sigh he took his Rook, who had begun to go lame of one leg, from the man who held him and began mounting.

“What was that—grape-shot?” he asked of Denisov.

“Yes, and something like it too,” cried Denisov; “they worked their guns in fine style. But it’s a nasty business. A cavalry attack’s a pleasant thing—slash away at the dogs; but this is for all the devil like aiming at a target.”

And Denisov rode away to a group standing not far from Rostov, consisting of the colonel, Nesvitsky, Zherkov, and the officer of the suite.

“It seems as if no one noticed it, though,” Rostov thought to himself. And indeed no one had noticed it at all, for every one was familiar with the feeling that the ensign, never before under fire, was experiencing for the first time.

“Now you’ll have something to talk about,” said Zherkov; “they’ll be promoting me a sub-lieutenant before I know where I am, eh?”

“Inform the prince that I have burnt the bridge,” said the colonel, in a cheerful and triumphant tone.

“And if he inquires with what losses?”

“Not worth mentioning,” boomed the colonel; “two hussars wounded and one stark dead on the spot,” he said, with undisguised cheerfulness. The German was unable to repress a smile of satisfaction as he sonorously enunciated the idiomatic Russian colloquialism of the last phrase.

Chapter 9

PURSUED by the French army of a hundred thousand men under the command of Bonaparte, received with hostility by the inhabitants, losing confidence in their allies, suffering from shortness of supplies, and forced to act under circumstances unlike anything that had been foreseen, the Russian army of thirty-five thousand men, under the command of Kutuzov, beat a hasty retreat to the lower ground about the Danube. There they halted, and were overtaken by the enemy, and fought a few rear-guard skirmishes, avoiding an engagement, except in so far as it was necessary to secure a retreat without the loss of their baggage and guns. There were actions at Lambach, at Amsteten, and at Melk; but in spite of the courage and stubbornness—acknowledged even by the enemy—with which the Russians fought, the only consequence of these engagements was a still more rapid retreat. The Austrian troops that had escaped being taken at Ulm, and had joined Kutuzov’s forces at Braunau, now parted from the Russian army, and Kutuzov was left unsupported with his weak and exhausted forces. The defence of Vienna could no longer be dreamed of. Instead of the elaborately planned campaign of attack, in accordance with the principles of the modern science of strategy, the plan of which had been communicated to Kutuzov during his sojourn in Vienna by the Austrian Hofkriegsrath, the sole aim—almost a hopeless one—that remained now for Kutuzov was to avoid losing his army, like Mack at Ulm, and to effect a junction with the fresh troops marching from Russia.

On the 28th of October, Kutuzov took his army across to the left bank of the Danube, and then for the first time halted, leaving the Danube between his army and the greater part of the enemy’s forces. On the 30th he attacked Mortier’s division, which was on the left bank of the Danube, and defeated it. In this action for the first time trophies were taken—a flag, cannons, and two of the enemy’s generals. For the first time, after retreating for a fortnight, the Russian troops had halted, and after fighting had not merely kept the field of battle, but had driven the French off it. Although the troops were without clothing and exhausted, and had lost a third of their strength in wounded, killed, and missing; although they had left their sick and wounded behind on the other side of the Danube, with a letter from Kutuzov commending them to the humanity of the enemy; although the great hospitals and houses in Krems could not contain all the sick and wounded,—in spite of all that, the halt before Krems and the victory over Mortier had greatly raised the spirits of the troops. Throughout the whole army, and also at headquarters, there were the most cheerful but groundless rumours of the near approach of the columns from Russia, of some victory gained by the Austrians, and of the retreat of Bonaparte panic-stricken.

Prince Andrey had been during the engagement in attendance on the Austrian general Schmidt, 

The French had time to fire three volleys of grape-shot before the hussars got back to their horses

He pointed to the French guns, which had been taken out of the gun-carriages, and were hurriedly moving away.

On the French side, smoke rose among the groups that had cannons. One puff, a second and a third almost at the same instant; and at the very moment when they heard the sound of the first shot, there rose the smoke of a fourth; two booms came one after another, then a third.

“Oh, oh!” moaned Nesvitsky, clutching at the hand of the officer of the suite, as though in intense pain. “Look, a man has fallen, fallen, fallen!”

“Two, I think.”

“If I were Tsar, I’d never go to war,” said Nesvitsky, turning away.

The French cannons were speedily loaded again. The infantry in their blue tunics were running towards the bridge. Again the puffs of smoke rose at different intervals, and the grape-shot rattled and cracked on the bridge. But this time Nesvitsky could not see what was happening at the bridge. A thick cloud of smoke had risen from it. The hussars had succeeded in setting fire to the bridge, and the French batteries were firing at them now, not to hinder them, but because their guns had been brought up and they had some one to fire at.

The French had time to fire three volleys of grape-shot before the hussars got back to their horses. Two were badly aimed, and the shot flew over them, but the last volley fell in the middle of the group of hussars and knocked down three men.

Rostov, absorbed by his relations with Bogdanitch, stepped on the bridge, not knowing what he had to do. There was no one to slash at with his sword (that was how he always pictured a battle to himself), and he could be of no use in burning the bridge, because he had not brought with him any wisps of straw, like the other soldiers. He stood and looked about him, when suddenly there was a rattle on the bridge, like a lot of nuts being scattered, and one of the hussars, the one standing nearest him, fell with a groan on the railing. Rostov ran up to him with the others. Again some one shouted. “Stretchers!” Four men took hold of the hussar and began lifting him up. “Oooo! … Let me be, for Christ’s sake!” shrieked the wounded man, but still they lifted him up and laid him on a stretcher. Nikolay Rostov turned away, and began staring into the distance, at the waters of the Danube, at the sky, at the sun, as though he were searching for something. How fair that sky seemed, how blue and calm and deep. How brilliant and triumphant seemed the setting sun. With what an enticing glimmer shone the water of the faraway Danube. And fairer still were the far-away mountains that showed blue beyond the Danube, the nunnery, the mysterious gorges, the pine forests, filled with mist to the tree-tops … there all was peace and happiness.… “There is nothing, nothing I could wish for, if only I were there,” thought Rostov. “In myself alone and in that sunshine there is so much happiness, while here … groans, agonies, and this uncertainty, this hurry.… Here they are shouting something again and again, all of them are running back somewhere, and I’m running with them, and here is it, it, death hanging over me, all round me.… One instant, and I shall never see that sunshine, that water, that mountain gorge again.…” At that moment the sun went behind the clouds; more stretchers came into view ahead of Rostov. And the terror of death and of the stretchers, and the loss of the sunshine and life, all blended into one sensation of sickening fear.

“Good God, Thou who art in that sky, save and forgive, and protect me,” Rostov whispered to 

“Eh! it’ll strike the guilty one,”

“On both sides, captain,” he heard shouted by the colonel, who, riding on ahead, had pulled his horse up near the bridge, with a triumphant and cheerful face.

Rostov, rubbing his muddy hands on his riding-breeches, looked round at his enemy, and would have run on further, imagining that the forwarder he went the better it would be. But though Bogdanitch was not looking, and did not recognise Rostov, he shouted to him.

“Who will go along the middle of the bridge? On the right side? Ensign, back!” he shouted angrily, and he turned to Denisov, who with swaggering bravado rode on horseback on to the planks of the bridge.

“Why run risks, captain? You should dismount,” said the colonel.

“Eh! it’ll strike the guilty one,” said Vaska Denisov, turning in his saddle.

Meanwhile Nesvitsky, Zherkov, and the officer of the suite were standing together out of range of the enemy, watching the little group of men in yellow shakoes, dark-green jackets, embroidered with frogs, and blue riding-breeches, swarming about the bridge, and on the other side of the river the blue tunics and the groups with horses, that might so easily be taken for guns, approaching in the distance.

“Will they burn the bridge or not? Who’ll get there first? Will they run there and burn it, or the French train their grape-shot on them and kill them?” These were the questions that, with a sinking of the heart, each man was asking himself in the great mass of troops overlooking the bridge. In the brilliant evening sunshine they gazed at the bridge and the hussars and at the blue tunics, with bayonets and guns, moving up on the other side.

“Ugh! The hussars will be caught,” said Nesvitsky. “They’re not out of range of grape-shot now.”

“He did wrong to take so many men,” said the officer of the suite.

“Yes, indeed,” said Nesvitsky. “If he’d sent two bold fellows it would have done as well.”

“Ah, your excellency,” put in Zherkov, his eyes fixed on the hussars, though he still spoke with his na?ve manner, from which one could not guess whether he were speaking seriously or not. “Ah, your excellency. How you look at things. Send two men, but who would give us the Vladimir and ribbon then? But as it is, even if they do pepper them, one can represent the squadron and receive the ribbon oneself. Our good friend Bogdanitch knows the way to do things.”

“I say,” said the officer of the suite, “that’s grape-shot.”

“Colonel,” interposed the officer of the suite,

“Why, about the same order. You’re sopping though, you want to be rubbed down.”

“You said, M. le staff-officer …” pursued the colonel in an aggrieved tone.

“Colonel,” interposed the officer of the suite, “there is need of haste, or the enemy will have moved up their grape-shot guns.”

The colonel looked dumbly at the officer of the suite, at the stout staff-officer, at Zherkov, and scowled.

“I will burn the bridge,” he said in a solemn tone, as though he would express that in spite of everything they might do to annoy him, he would still do what he ought.

Beating his long muscular legs against his horse, as though he were to blame for it all, the colonel moved forward and commanded the second squadron, the one under Denisov’s command, in which Rostov was serving, to turn back to the bridge.

“Yes, it really is so,” thought Rostov, “he wants to test me!” His heart throbbed and the blood rushed to his face. “Let him see whether I’m a coward!” he thought.

Again all the light-hearted faces of the men of the squadron wore that grave line, which had come upon them when they were under fire. Rostov looked steadily at his enemy, the colonel, trying to find confirmation of his suppositions on his face. But the colonel never once glanced at Rostov, and looked, as he always did at the front, stern and solemn. The word of command was given.

“Look sharp! look sharp!” several voices repeated around him.

Their swords catching in the reins and their spurs jingling, the hussars dismounted in haste, not knowing themselves what they were to do. The soldiers crossed themselves. Rostov did not look at the colonel now; he had no time. He dreaded, with a sinking heart he dreaded, being left behind by the hussars. His hand trembled as he gave his horse to an orderly, and he felt that the blood was rushing to his heart with a thud. Denisov, rolling backwards, and shouting something, rode by him. Rostov saw nothing but the hussars running around him, clinking spurs and jingling swords.

“Stretchers!” shouted a voice behind him. Rostov did not think of the meaning of the need of stretchers. He ran along, trying only to be ahead of all. But just at the bridge, not looking at his feet, he got into the slippery, trodden mud, and stumbling fell on his hands. The others out-stripped him.

“An order, who to?” asked the colonel grimly.

The squadron crossed the bridge and passed out of range of the enemy’s guns without losing a single man. It was followed by the second squadron, and the Cossacks last of all crossed, leaving the further side of the river clear.

The two squadrons of the Pavlograd regiment, after crossing the bridge, rode one after the other up the hill. Their colonel, Karl Bogdanitch Schubert, had joined Denisov’s squadron, and was riding at a walking pace not far from Rostov, taking no notice of him, though this was the first time they had met since the incident in connection with Telyanin. Rostov, feeling himself at the front in the power of the man towards whom be now admitted that he had been to blame, never took his eyes off the athletic back, and flaxen head and red neck of the colonel. It seemed to Rostov at one time that Bogdanitch was only feigning inattention, and that his whole aim was now to test the ensign’s pluck; and he drew himself up and looked about him gaily. Then he fancied that Bogdanitch was riding close by him on purpose to show off his own valour. Then the thought struck him that his enemy was now sending the squadron to a hopeless attack on purpose to punish him, Rostov. Then he dreamed of how after the attack he would go up to him as he lay wounded, and magnanimously hold out his hand in reconciliation. The high-shouldered figure of Zherkov, who was known to the Pavlograd hussars, as he had not long before left their regiment, rode up to the colonel. After Zherkov had been dismissed from the staff of the commander-in-chief, he had not remained in the regiment, saying that he was not such a fool as to go to hard labour at the front when he could get more pay for doing nothing on the staff, and he had succeeded in getting appointed an orderly on the staff of Prince Bagration. He rode up to his old colonel with an order from the commander of the rear guard.

“Colonel,” he said, with his gloomy seriousness, addressing Rostov’s enemy, and looking round at his comrades, “there’s an order to go back and burn the bridge.”

“An order, who to?” asked the colonel grimly.

“Well, I don’t know, colonel, who to,” answered the cornet, seriously, “only the prince commanded me: ‘Ride and tell the colonel the hussars are to make haste back and burn the bridge.’ ”

Zherkov was followed by an officer of the suite, who rode up to the colonel with the same command. After the officer of the suite the stout figure of Nesvitsky was seen riding up on a Cossack’s horse, which had some trouble to gallop with him.

“Why, colonel,” he shouted, while still galloping towards him, “I told you to burn the bridge, and now some one’s got it wrong; they’re all frantic over there, there’s no making out anything.”

The colonel in a leisurely way stopped the regiment and turned to Nesvitsky.

“You told me about burning materials,” he said; “but about burning it, you never said a word.”

“Why, my good man,” said Nesvitsky, as he halted, taking off his forage-cap and passing his plump hand over his hair, which was drenched with sweat, “what need to say the bridge was to be burnt when you put burning materials to it?”

“I’m not your ‘good man,’ M. le staff-officer, and you never told me to set fire to the bridge! I know my duty, and it’s my habit to carry out my orders strictly. You said the bridge will be burnt, but who was going to burn it I couldn’t tell.”

“Well, that’s always the way,” said Nesvitsky, with a wave of his arm. “How do you come here?” he added, addressing Zherkov.