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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Great White Army, by Max Pemberton
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Great White Army
+
+Author: Max Pemberton
+
+Release Date: March 10, 2011 [EBook #35540]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GREAT WHITE ARMY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE GREAT WHITE ARMY
+
+
+
+By
+
+Max Pemberton
+
+
+
+
+CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD
+
+London, New York, Toronto & Melbourne
+
+1916
+
+
+
+
+_Works by the same Author_
+
+  MILLIONAIRE'S ISLAND
+  THE IRON PIRATE
+  WHITE MOTLEY
+  THE VIRGIN FORTRESS
+  WAR AND THE WOMAN
+  CAPTAIN BLACK.  A sequel to "The Iron Pirate"
+  THE GIRL WITH THE RED HAIR
+  THE SHOW GIRL
+  THE HOUSE UNDER THE SEA
+  THE SEA-WOLVES
+  THE IMPREGNABLE CITY
+  THE GIANT'S GATE
+  A PURITAN'S WIFE
+  THE GARDEN OF SWORDS
+  KRONSTADT.  A Novel
+  THE LITTLE HUGUENOT
+  RED MORN
+  THE HUNDRED DAYS
+  THE DIAMOND SHIP
+  WHEELS OF ANARCHY
+  SIR RICHARD ESCOMBE
+
+CASSELL AND CO., LTD.,
+
+LONDON, NEW YORK, TORONTO AND MELBOURNE.
+
+
+
+
+AUTHOR'S NOTE
+
+_The greatest military tragedy in history is the retreat of Napoleon's
+Grand Army from Moscow.  Napoleon set out to invade Russia in the
+spring of the year 1812.  In the month of June 600,000 men crossed the
+River Niemen.  Of this vast army, but 20,000 "famished, frost-bitten
+spectres" staggered across the Bridge of Kovno in the month of
+December._
+
+_Many pens have described, with more or less fidelity, the details of
+this unsurpassable tragedy.  The story which we are now about to
+represent to our readers is that of Surgeon-Major Constant, a veteran
+who accompanied Napoleon to Moscow, and was one of the survivors who
+returned ultimately to Paris.  Constant had fled from Paris at the
+beginning of the French Revolution in the year 1792.  He lived for a
+while at Leipsic, where he gave lessons in French and studied medicine.
+His nephew, Captain Leon de Courcelles, was one of the famous Velites
+of the Guard.  It is with the exploits of this young and daring soldier
+that the veteran's narrative is often concerned._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+   1. THE WOMAN ON THE STAIRS
+   2. THE GUILLOTINE
+   3. THE TREASURE IN THE WOODS
+   4. PHANTOM MUSIC
+   5. THE CAMP BY THE RIVER
+   6. THE WITCH IN ERMINE
+   7. LITTLE PETROVKA
+   8. THE AFFAIR AT THE POST-HOUSE
+   9. WE CROSS THE BEREZINA
+  10. THE LAST REVIEW
+
+
+
+THE GREAT WHITE ARMY
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE WOMAN ON THE STAIRS
+
+I
+
+I, Janil de Constant, remember very well the moment when we first
+beheld the glorious city of Moscow, which we had marched twelve
+thousand leagues to take.
+
+It would have been the fourteenth day of September.  The sun shone
+fiercely upon our splendid cavalcade, and even in the forests, which we
+now quitted very willingly, there were oases of light like golden lakes
+in a wonderland.
+
+It was half-past three o'clock when I myself reached the Mont du Salut,
+a hill from whose summit the traveller first looks down upon the city.
+
+And what a spectacle to see!  What domes and minarets and mighty
+towers!  What a mingling of East and West, of Oriental beauty and the
+stately splendour of a European capital!  You will not wonder that our
+men drew rein to gaze with awe upon so transcendent a spectacle.  This
+was Mecca truly.  Here they would end their labours and here lay their
+reward.
+
+We thought, with reason surely, that there would be no more talk of
+war.  The Russians had learned their lesson at Borodino, and all that
+remained for the Russian Tsar to do was to make peace with our Emperor.
+Meanwhile there would be many days of holiday such as we had not known
+since we left France.  The riches of this city passed the fables, they
+told us.  You will imagine with what feelings the advance posts of the
+Guard set out to descend the hill and take up their quarters in the
+governor's palace.
+
+I had hoped to enter Moscow with my nephew Leon, who is one of the
+Velites of the Guard.  I wished to be near that young man at so
+critical a moment.  Even old soldiers lose their heads when they enter
+an enemy's city, and what could one expect of the young ones?  Leon,
+however, had ridden on with Major Pavart, of the _chasseurs a cheval_,
+and so it was with old Sergeant Bourgogne, of the Velites, that I
+entered Moscow and began to think of quarters.
+
+We heard some shots as we went down into the town, and when we came to
+that broad street which leads to the Place du Gouvernement, a soldier
+of the line told us that the governor had released the convicts and
+that they were holding the palace against our outposts.  We thought
+very little of the matter at the time, and were more concerned to
+admire the magnificence of the street and the beauty of many of its
+houses.  These, it appeared, belonged to the nobility, but we began to
+perceive that none of the princely owners had remained in Moscow, and
+that only a few servants occupied these mansions.  Many of the latter
+watched us as we rode by, and at the corner of the great square one of
+them, a dandy fellow with mincing gait, had the temerity to catch my
+horse by the bridle and to hold him while he told me that his name was
+Heriot, and that he had left Paris with the Count of Provence in the
+year 1790.
+
+"You are a surgeon, are you not?" he went on before I had time to
+exclaim upon his effrontery.  Amazed, I told him that I was.
+
+"Then," said he, "be good enough to come into yonder house and see to
+one of your own men who is lying there."
+
+I suppose it was a proper thing for the fellow to ask me, yet the
+_naivete_ of it brought a smile to my lips.
+
+"Bon garcon," said I, "you must have many surgeons of your own in
+Moscow.  Why ask me, who am on my way to the Emperor?"
+
+"Because," he said, still holding the bridle, "you will not regret your
+visit, monsieur.  This is a rich house: they will know how to pay you
+for your services."
+
+There was something mysterious about this remark which excited my
+curiosity, and turning my horse aside I permitted him to lead it into
+the stable courtyard.  It was to be observed that he slammed the great
+gate quickly behind us, and bolted it with great bars of iron which
+would almost have defied artillery.  Then he tethered my horse to a
+pillar and bade me follow him.  It was just at the moment when the band
+of the Fusiliers began to play a lively air and many thousands of our
+infantry pressed on into the square.
+
+
+II
+
+We entered the house itself by a wicket upon the left-hand side, which
+should have led to the kitchens.
+
+It was here, perhaps, that I thought it not a little extraordinary, and
+it may be somewhat less than prudent, that I, who should have been
+already at the gates of the palace, had turned aside at the mere nod of
+this dandy to enter a house of whose people I knew nothing.
+Nevertheless, it was the case, and I reflected that if one of my own
+countrymen were indeed in distress, then was the delay not ill-timed.
+
+We were at the foot of a cold stone staircase by this time, and I
+observed that the lackey began to mount it with some caution.  There
+was no sound in the house, and when presently we emerged in the gallery
+of a vast hall the place had all the air of a church which has been
+long closed.
+
+Here for the first time I discovered the purpose for which I had been
+brought to the place.  A man lay dead upon the flags of the gallery,
+and it was clear that he had died by a bullet from the pistol which was
+flung down at his side.
+
+Thousands of men had I seen die since we crossed the River Niemen, yet
+the sight of this mere youth lying dead upon the flags afflicted me
+strangely.  Perchance it was the great cold hall, or the dim light
+which filtered through its heavy windows, or the silence of that
+immense house and all the suggestions of mystery which attended it.  Be
+it as it may, I had less than my usual resource when I knelt by the
+young man's side and made that brief examination which quickly
+convinced me that he was dead.  The dandy, meanwhile, stood near by
+taking prodigious pinches of snuff from a box edged with diamonds.  His
+unconcern was remarkable.  I could make nothing of such a picture.
+
+"Who is this youth?" I asked him.
+
+He shrugged his shoulders and took another pinch of the snuff.
+
+"One of your own countrymen, as I say--an artist from Frejus who is in
+the service of my lord, the prince."
+
+"How did he die, then?"
+
+The dandy averted his eyes.  Then he said:
+
+"I returned from the great square ten minutes ago and found him here.
+You can see as well as I that he shot himself."
+
+"That is not true," I rejoined, looking at him sternly.  "Men do not
+shoot themselves in the middle of the back!"
+
+He was still unconcerned.
+
+"Very well, then," he retorted; "someone must have shot him."  And
+almost upon the words he turned as white as a sheet.
+
+"Listen," he cried in a loud whisper; "did you not hear them?"
+
+I listened and certainly heard the sound of voices.
+
+It came through an open door at the far end of the gallery and rose in
+a sharp crescendo, which seemed to say that men were quarrelling.
+
+"Who is in the house?" I asked the fellow.
+
+"I do not know," he said gravely enough.  "There should be no one here
+but ourselves.  Perhaps you will be good enough to see.  You are a
+soldier; it is your business."
+
+I laughed at his impudence, and having looked to the priming of my
+pistol, I caught him suddenly by the arm and pushed him on ahead of me.
+Justly or not, it had flashed upon me that this might be a trap.  Yet
+why it should be so or what it had to do with a surgeon-major of the
+Guards I knew no more than the dead.
+
+"We will go together," said I; and so I pushed him down the corridor.
+
+My presence seemed to give him courage.  He entered the room with me,
+and before a man could have counted three he fell headlong with a great
+gash in his throat that all the surgeons in the French army could not
+have stitched up.
+
+This was a memorable scene, but I was to witness many a one like it in
+those days of rapine and of pillage to come.
+
+We had entered a lofty room, the furniture of which would not have been
+out of place in the Emperor's palace at Paris.  Most of it, indeed, was
+French, and some of the cabinets were such as you may see to this day
+both in the Tuileries and at Fontainebleau.  So much I observed at a
+glance, but infinitely of more import at the moment was the tenants of
+the room.  Three greater ruffians I have never seen in any city of
+Europe; neither men so dirty and ill-kempt nor so ferocious in their
+mien.  All wore ragged sheepskins and had their legs bare at the knee.
+They were armed with knives and bludgeons, and two of them carried
+torches in their hands.  Instantly I saw that these were three of the
+convicts whom the governor had released.  They had come to sack the
+house, and they would have killed any who opposed them as a butcher
+kills a sheep.  But for the dead man at my feet, I could have laughed
+aloud at their predicament when they suddenly realised that a soldier
+and not a civilian must now be dealt with.  It was just as though their
+valour went ebbing away in a torrent.
+
+I struck the first man down with the butt end of my pistol, and,
+fearing the effect of a shot, drew my sword and made for the others who
+held the torches.  They fled headlong, slamming the heavy door at the
+far end of the room behind them--and there was I alone with the dead,
+and the house had fallen again to the silence of a tomb.
+
+
+III
+
+I stooped over the man I had struck down, and found him breathing
+stertorously but still alive.  The lackey, however, was quite dead, and
+his blood had made a great pool upon the rich Eastern carpet of the
+salon.
+
+My first impulse was to go to the windows and open the heavy shutters;
+and when this was done I found myself looking out upon a pretty garden
+in the Italian fashion.  It was surrounded by high walls on three
+sides, and seemed as void of humanity as the house.  The salon itself
+stood at a considerable height from the ground, and although there was
+a wide balcony before the windows, I perceived no possible means of
+escape thereby.
+
+This will tell you that I now had a considerable apprehension both of
+the deserted house and of the adventure which had befallen me.  Not
+only did I blame my own folly for listening to the servant in the first
+instance--that was bad enough--but upon it there came a desire to
+return to my comrades, which was almost an obsession.  There I stood
+upon the balcony listening to the rolling of the drums and the blare of
+the bugles, and yet I might have been a thousand leagues from friends
+and comrades.  Moreover, it was evident that I had not seen the last of
+the assassins, and that they would return.
+
+Such was the situation at a moment when I realised that escape by the
+balcony was impossible.  Returning to the room, its beauty and riches
+stood fully revealed by the warm sunlight, and they recalled to me the
+tales of Moscow's wealth which we had heard directly we entered Russia.
+The Grand Army, I said, would be well occupied for many days to come in
+an employment it had always found congenial.  Vases of the rarest
+porcelain, statues from Italy, pictures and furniture from my own
+France, gems in gold and stones most precious were the common ornaments
+of this magnificent apartment.  Here and there an empty cabinet seemed
+to say that some attempt had been made already to remove these
+treasures, and that the entry of our troops had disturbed the robbers.
+What remained, however, would have been riches to a prince, and it
+would have been possible for me to have put a fortune into my wallet
+that very hour.
+
+Already it seemed to me that I should have a difficulty in finding my
+way out of the house.  The idea had been in my mind when I stood upon
+the balcony and contemplated the solitude and the security of the
+garden below.  There I had listened to the rolling music of the bands,
+the blare of bugles, and the tramping of many thousands of exulting
+soldiers; but all sounds were lost when I returned to the great hall
+and stood alone with the dead.
+
+Who was this youth to whom I had been called?
+
+I bent over him and discovered such a face as one might find in the
+picture of an Italian master.  The lad would have been about one and
+twenty, and no woman's hair could have been finer than his.  Such a
+skin I had rarely seen; the face might have been chiselled from the
+purest marble; the eyes were open and blue as the sea by which I
+imagined this young fellow had lived.  There was firmness in the chin,
+and a contour of neck and shoulders which even a physician could admire.
+
+His clothes, I observed, were well chosen and made of him a man of some
+taste.  He wore breeches of black velvet and a shirt of the finest
+cambric, open at the neck.  His shoes had jewelled buckles, and his
+stockings were of silk.  Who, then, was the lad, and why had the lackey
+killed him?  That was a question I meant to answer when I had some of
+my comrades with me.  It remained to escape from this house of mystery
+as quickly as might be.
+
+I passed down the staircase and came to an ante-room with a vast door
+at the end of it.  It was heavily bolted, and the keys of it were gone.
+So much I had expected, and yet it seemed that where the assassins had
+gone there might I follow.  Ridiculous to be a prisoner of a house from
+within, and of such a house, when there must be half a dozen doors that
+gave upon the streets about it.  And yet I could find none of them that
+was not locked and barred as the chief door I have named, while every
+window upon the ground floor might have been that of a prison.
+
+Vainly I went from place to place--here by corridors that were as dark
+as night, there into rooms where the lightest sounds gave an echo as of
+thunder, back again to the great hall I had left--and always with the
+fear of the assassins upon me and the irony of my condition
+unconcealed.  Good God!  That I had shut myself in such a trap!  A
+thousand times I cursed the builder of such a house and all his works.
+The night, I said, would find me alone in a tomb of marble.
+
+I shall not weary you by a recital of all that befell in the hours of
+daylight that remained.  I had a horrid fear of the dark, and when at
+length it overtook me I returned to the salon, and, having covered the
+dead men with the rugs lying about, went thence to the balcony and so
+watched the night come down.
+
+Consider my situation--so near and yet so far from all that was taking
+place in this fallen city.
+
+Above me the great bowl of the sky glowed with the lights of many a
+bivouac in square or market.  It was as though the whole city trembled
+beneath the footsteps of the thousands who now trampled down her
+ancient glory and cast her banners to the earth.  The blare of bands
+was to be heard everywhere; the murmur of voices rose and fell like the
+angry surf that beats upon a shore.  Cries of "Vive l'Empereur!" rent
+the air from time to time, and to them were added the fierce shouting
+of the rabble or the frenzied screams of those who fled before the
+glittering bayonets of this mighty host.  And to crown all, as though
+mockingly, there rang out the music of those unsurpassable bells--the
+bells of Moscow, of which all the world has heard.
+
+These were the sights and sounds which came to me as I stood upon that
+balcony and laughed grimly at my situation.  But a stone's throw away,
+said I, there would be merry fellows enough to call me by my name and
+lead me to my comrades.
+
+Janil de Constant, I flattered myself, was as well known as any man in
+all the Guard, old or young.  Never did his Majesty pass me but I had a
+warm word from him or that little pinch upon the ear which denoted his
+favour.
+
+My art was considerable, as all the world knows.
+
+I had been a professor in the University of Paris until this fever of
+war fell upon me, and I set out to discover its realities for myself.
+What skill could do for suffering men, I had done these many months,
+and yet here was I as far from it all as though a ship had carried me
+to the Indies and the desolation of the ocean lay all about me.
+
+These, I say, were my thoughts, and the night--that wonderful night of
+summer--did nothing to better them.  Perchance I should have spent it
+there upon the balcony but for that which I had expected--the return of
+the assassins to the spoils from which they had been scared.  It could
+not have befallen otherwise.  The time, I suppose, would have been
+about ten of the clock.  They entered the garden below me, and I heard
+their footsteps upon the grass.  But now there were many of them, and
+even from the balcony it was apparent to me that all were armed.
+
+
+IV
+
+I returned to the room, and, crossing it swiftly, had my hand already
+upon the key of the door when a new sound arrested me.
+
+The sound proceeded from the gallery of the great staircase.  I heard a
+key turned and a door creak upon its hinges.  A moment later the faint
+light of a candle illumined the staircase, and the figure of a woman
+appeared.
+
+It was all very sudden.  But the half of a minute, I suppose, elapsed
+between the first sound of the key and the appearance of the beautiful
+creature who now stood in the gallery; yet to me it seemed an age of
+waiting.  There I stood motionless, watching that vision which the
+candle revealed--the vision of the sleeper awakened, and a woman's
+cloak thrown about her shoulders.
+
+"Good God!" I cried, "the dead have come to life!"  Beyond all doubt
+this must be the sister of the murdered man.
+
+"Mademoiselle," I said, taking a step forward.  And at that she cried
+out in terror and let the candle drop.  Instantly I strode to her side
+and caught both her hands, for it was evident she was swooning.
+
+"Mademoiselle," I repeated, "I am a Frenchman, and came to this house
+to help your brother.  Help me in your turn.  There are men in the
+garden, and they are coming in--we must be quick, mademoiselle."
+
+She shivered a little in my arms and then pressed forward towards me.
+
+"I am Valerie," she murmured in a low voice, as though I would
+recognise the name.  "My brother is dead; Francois the steward killed
+him.  Oh, take me away--take me from this place."
+
+I told her that I would do so, that my only desire was to escape from
+the house if I could.
+
+"But, mademoiselle," said I, "every door is locked.  I cannot find the
+way, and the brigands are returning.  We have no time to lose."
+
+The tidings appeared to rouse her.  She passed her hand across her
+forehead and, staggering forward a little way, stood very still as
+though in thought.
+
+I shall never forget that picture of her as the moonbeams came down
+from the dome above, and she stood there in a robe of white and silver.
+A more beautiful thing I have never seen upon God's earth.  The story
+of her brother's death appeared no longer a mystery.
+
+"My God!" she cried, "they are in the house!"
+
+We bent over the balustrade together and listened to the sounds.  There
+was a crashing as of woodwork, and then the hum of voices.  Instantly
+upon that there came the heavy trampling of feet.  Those who entered
+the house were not afraid--they were even laughing as they came.
+
+"What shall we do?" she cried.  "What shall we do?"
+
+I caught her hand and dragged her back from the railing.
+
+"There must be some room which will hide us," said I.  "You know the
+way.  Think, child; is there no such place?"
+
+She did not answer me, but turned and led the way up the narrow flight
+of stairs by which she had appeared.  Here was her bedroom.
+
+We passed through it without delay and entered an oratory which lay at
+the head of a second flight of stairs immediately beyond.  Here she
+shut a heavy door of oak and bolted it.  The only light in the room
+flickered from a golden lamp before the altar, and as far as I could
+see there was no way out other than the door by which we had come in.
+
+Now, this chapel was built in one of the eastern turrets of the house.
+I came to learn later that the owner of the place was Prince Boris, a
+man of some culture and of European notoriety, and that, while he was
+himself an orthodox Greek, he had permitted this use of a secret chapel
+to the young Frenchwoman who now knelt before its altar.
+
+Wonderfully decorated in gold and silver, with rare pictures upon its
+walls and superb gems in the crucifixes above the tabernacle, the whole
+bore witness to a man of Catholic sympathies and abundant wealth.  At
+any other time, no doubt, I would have made much of this hidden chapel
+and of its treasures; but the hour was not propitious, and, glad of its
+momentous security, I turned to the girl and would have questioned her.
+She, however, was already at her prayers, nor did she seem to hear me
+when I addressed her.  A second question merely caused her to turn her
+head and cry, "Hush! they will hear us!"  And so she went on praying--I
+doubt not for her dead brother's soul--while I paced up and down in as
+great a state of anger and of self-reproach as I had ever been in all
+my life.
+
+What a situation for a surgeon-major of the Guards--to be locked up
+here in this puny chapel with a houseful of assassins below, and my own
+regiment not a stone's throw from the gate!  And yet that was the truth
+of it, and anon I heard some of the robbers come leaping up the stairs,
+and presently they began to beat upon the door of the chapel, and I
+knew that they carried axes in their hands.
+
+
+V
+
+The sounds were deep and ominous, and might well have quelled a
+stronger spirit.  The girl herself turned her head at the first blow,
+and then, staggering to her feet, she caught me by the arm and
+whispered her fears in my ear.
+
+"They will beat it down," she said, indicating the door.
+
+I answered that I thought it quite possible.
+
+"Why do your soldiers let them?" she asked me; and upon that she said,
+"Why did you come here alone?"
+
+I told her that the steward, for such I supposed the lackey to be, had
+brought me to the place; and so much she understood readily enough.
+
+"He was insolent to me," she exclaimed.  "My brother struck him.  He
+carried a pistol, but we did not know it.  God help me, what I have
+suffered this day!  And now this----"  And again she indicated the
+peril beyond the door.
+
+Yet with it all her courage was not lacking.  She no longer wept now
+that danger threatened us, and presently she pointed to the gilded dome
+above, and said that it could be reached from the little gallery behind
+the altar.
+
+"Then," said I, "let us see what we can do."  And, taking her hand, we
+went up to the gallery together; and there sure enough in the angle was
+a Gothic window large enough for a man to pass through.  When I opened
+it I saw a narrow gallery at the very summit of the cupola, and to this
+I helped her immediately.  The height was considerable and the parapet
+but trifling.  She stood there by my side without flinching, and when
+we had closed the window it seemed as though the peril were now far
+distant.
+
+"I could hold this place against a regiment," said I, drawing my sword
+and indicating the narrow window.
+
+She understood as much, and, nodding her head, she gazed out over
+Moscow, as though some help were to be expected from the turbid streets
+which the night now revealed to us.
+
+Surely this was a wonderful hour!  The gallery of the cupola stood some
+eighty feet above the pavement of the courtyard below.  We looked out
+over the stables of the prince's house to the great gate by which I had
+entered and the Place du Gouvernement where the lackey had accosted me.
+It must have been nearly midnight, and yet Moscow was as wide awake as
+ever she had been in her history.  I saw thousands of my own countrymen
+marching with light steps to the bivouacs prepared for them.  Great
+fires had been kindled in every open space.  There were lanterns
+swinging and bugles blaring.  Bayonets shimmered in the crimson light,
+bells rang joyously, the triumphant war songs of the victors were
+unceasing.  And all this amid a clamour, a restless going to and fro, a
+fevered movement of awakened people that capitulation alone could
+provoke.  The Grand Army had reached its goal, and here was the end of
+its labours.  So I doubt not the thousands thought as they pressed on
+towards the Kremlin and soldiers began to enter every house and demand
+the fruits of their labours.
+
+I have told you that the beautiful young Frenchwoman had hardly spoken
+to me hitherto, but here at this dizzy height she began for the first
+time, I think, to realise that I was a friend and not a foe, and her
+tongue was loosened.  I have never seen greater dignity in a woman nor
+one whose self-possession was so remarkable under such tragic
+circumstances.  She indicated the busy street below and asked me to
+which of those regiments I belonged.
+
+I told her at once that I was a surgeon-major of the Velites, and
+should be now in the governor's palace with the Emperor.
+
+"Then," she said, "your friends will come to look for you, will they
+not?"
+
+I told her that it was not impossible.
+
+"But, mademoiselle," said I, "they will not imagine that I have become
+a bird."
+
+She liked the humour of it and smiled very sweetly.
+
+"Oh," she said, closing her eyes and shuddering, "what a day it has
+been!  Prince Boris left yesterday to rejoin the army.  My brother and
+I were to have followed him to Nishni this afternoon.  Then the steward
+said that he could not be left alone, for the convicts were out and
+were robbing the houses.  The governor released them at noon to-day.
+They have been pillaging all Moscow, and your friends will find little
+when they come."
+
+I was greatly interested in this, for some such story had reached us
+even before we entered the city.
+
+The desperate resolve to deliver Moscow to the evil element in its
+population had been taken by its rulers some days previously to the
+arrival of the army, but neither the Emperor nor his staff had been
+greatly moved by it.  The cavalry would soon make short work of these
+fellows in the open, while we trusted to the predatory instincts of the
+rank and file to deal with such scum in the houses.
+
+I was about to tell her as much when a movement of the window behind us
+caused me to turn round, and to discover a shaggy head protruding
+therefrom.  Without a thought, I fired my pistol point blank at it, and
+I shall always say that this was as unlucky a stroke as ever I made.
+The flash and the report on that high tower drew the attention of the
+passers-by in the street without, and presently some infantry who were
+passing began to fire on the tower, and the bullets rained thick around
+us.  There was nothing for it but to plump down beneath the balustrade
+and so wait until their humour was done.  And so we sat, the girl
+wide-eyed and silent, myself with drawn sword to thrust at any face
+which should be shown at the window above us.
+
+"Janil," said I to myself, "this will be a pretty tale for the regiment
+to-morrow."  Had you pressed me, I would have confessed a doubt that
+that to-morrow would ever be.
+
+An hour passed, I suppose, and still found us in the same position.
+There were no longer any bullets from the street, and anon, when I
+stood up and looked again over the great gate of the palace, whom
+should I see but my own nephew Leon riding up and down upon his famous
+white horse and evidently searching for his old uncle who had played so
+scurvy a trick upon him.
+
+
+VI
+
+Now this was a splendid sight; and, waving my sword and crying with all
+my lungs, I strove in vain to attract his attention.  As for the girl
+at my side, she watched me in some astonishment.  Presently, seeing
+what I was after, she asked me if it were not the young soldier on the
+white horse in whom I was interested.
+
+"Mademoiselle," said I, "it is Leon, my nephew.  If I can make myself
+known to him, I will warrant that he will be inside this house before
+you can count ten.  A fine soldier, mademoiselle; I am very proud of
+him."
+
+She nodded her head and looked at the boy with a new interest.  There
+was such a great bivouac fire at the corner of the square that you
+could see him almost as if he were upon the stage of a theatre, and
+surely a handsomer man did not ride with the Grand Army.  Well I knew
+what this pretty woman would think of him, and I watched her with an
+old man's interest.
+
+"He does not see you," she remarked presently.
+
+It was all too true.
+
+"But he will not abandon me," I retorted; and, turning at the same
+moment, I struck with the butt of my pistol at a second face which
+showed itself at the window.  The fellow withdrew with a curse that
+plainly meant mischief.  I could hear other voices in the room, and by
+and by a stranger sound, and the smell of fire upon it.
+
+"Good God!" I said, "they are burning the chapel!"
+
+At that she uttered a low cry, the first of fear that I had heard
+escape her lips.
+
+I opened the window and looked down into the chapel.  There were but
+two men there, and one was firing the curtains of the altar.  So little
+did he fear interruption that I leaped down on him while his torch was
+still upraised, and, running him through with my sword, I pulled the
+burning curtain upon him and stamped the fire out upon his body.  The
+other assassin watched me with eyes grown wide with fear.  He had a
+torch in his hand, but he stood there as though spellbound, and when I
+made at him he fell headlong upon the staircase, and man and fire went
+rolling over and over together.
+
+This did not alarm me, for the stairs were all stone, and there was
+nothing that could be kindled.  Following the fellow through the
+bedroom, I came again upon the great staircase, and there looked down
+upon as strange a spectacle as I shall ever see in all my years.  It
+was as though all the rabble of Moscow had come together in that
+magnificent hall--giant Tartars, low-caste assassins from the Indies,
+black-browed Slavs, patriarchs with long beards and youths with
+none--all were filling their sacks with the spoils of the prince's
+house and carrying them, when full, to the garden beyond.  Animals in a
+den never fought more fiercely than some of these rogues when their
+lusts had clashed.  Nor might a man have found a fiercer company in all
+the foul havens of the East.
+
+For myself, I watched them aghast, knowing that it were death to be
+discovered where I stood.  So eager, however, were they that none saw
+me, and the pillage and the riot were still at their height when one
+amongst them cried "Fire!" and in an instant every man sprang to
+attention, and the roar of a great conflagration burst upon their
+astonished ears.
+
+
+VII
+
+The palace had been fired; there could be no doubt about it.
+
+Volumes of smoke poured into the hall and went floating to the ceiling
+in dense and looming clouds.  The marble reflected a ruddy light as of
+flames vomited from a fiery pit.  There was a crackling of wood, a
+rending of glass, and upon that the oaths and curses of the assassins
+below.  Now truly were they hoist of their own petard.  The palace had
+been fired while their plunder was yet unpacked, and they roared and
+barked around it like wolves robbed of their prey.
+
+I say that we were all taken unawares, and that is true enough.  For
+myself, I stood there listening to the roar of the flames, and watching
+the mad, frenzied struggles of the scum below, and with no more idea of
+how to get out of the place than the veriest child might have had.
+None but a madman would have attempted to fight his way through the
+raving mob of brigands who grovelled about the doors in seeming
+impotence, as though their shaking hands could not unlock the bars
+which imprisoned them.  Yet passed they must be if I and the child with
+me were not to perish in the flames.
+
+So much could not be hidden from either of us.  We beheld them
+wrangling still upon their plunder while the flames were all about
+them, and those who did run from the hall returned immediately to warn
+their friends in a tongue which had no meaning for me.  From this time
+they became as demons possessed.  It was a terrible thing to see them
+running round and round like dogs driven by a whip, to hear the clash
+of their knives, and the shrieks of those who fell.  Nor could I wonder
+that my little companion's courage deserted her at last and that a loud
+cry of fear escaped her.
+
+"Oh, come," she cried, "come from this dreadful place."  And, so
+saying, she caught me almost savagely by the arm and led me from the
+gallery.  Whither she would take me, I knew not at all.  Her eyes were
+alight with the fear which animated her.  She stretched out her arms as
+though to feel her way in the gathering smoke which threatened us.  I
+could see already that she had little hope of the venture.
+
+We crossed a corridor and entered a lofty room which I took to be the
+library of the palace.  Farther on there was an antechamber, whose door
+was locked and barred as the others had been in the room below.  Upon
+this she beat furiously as though someone beyond could hear us and
+would open.  Solid as a gate of iron, twenty men could not have forced
+it.  I saw already that our errand was vain, and I was about to lead
+her away when what should happen but that the door was opened from
+within, and a Russian soldier stood before me.  "Nicholas!" cried
+mademoiselle; and instantly the child was in the arms of a Russian, who
+kissed her as a lover might have done.
+
+Now, this man was an officer who wore the white uniform and the black
+cuirass of Prince Boris's famous regiment.  I took him for the prince's
+son, and there I was not wrong, as I learned at a subsequent date.
+
+And it needed no clever eye to tell me how things stood between the
+girl and himself, and there was a smile on my lips while I watched them
+and then looked over his shoulder into the room beyond, full of his
+fellows and ablaze with the glitter of uniforms.
+
+The presence of these men needed little explanation.  I perceived that
+there had been a secret conclave in the palace, and I understood in an
+instant what my own presence must mean.  It was no coward's alarm.
+There were half a dozen of them atop of me before I could lift a hand
+to save myself.  In vain the girl pleaded with them.  They discovered
+immediately that the palace was on fire, and, mad with rage and fury,
+they fell upon me like wild beasts.  The French had done this thing,
+they cried; then let the Frenchmen pay the price.  I knew now that they
+meant to kill me.  Their very gestures would have told me as much.  "A
+spy!" they shouted--to Janil de Constant!
+
+Well, there it was, and that is the simple truth of the story.
+
+I remember that they pushed me headlong from the room, then down a
+steep flight of stairs, and so to a garden at the foot of it.  There
+one of them cried for a sergeant to come to him.  After that my memory
+is chiefly of the glitter of bayonets and of a man who called to his
+fellow to bind my hands with cord.  It came to me as in a dream that
+they were about to shoot me, and that this was the hour of my death.  I
+recollect that I was thrust up against a rough stone wall, and that the
+sergeant asked me a question in Russian of which I could make nothing.
+
+From the room there now came the loud shouts of the officers, who had
+discovered that the palace was on fire, and were leading some of the
+troopers to attack the flames.  Their voices and that of the sergeant
+mingled oddly in my ears; but presently I began to perceive that the
+man wished to bandage my eyes, and as this promised an instant of
+grace, I assented willingly.  To say that I was afraid is to give but a
+child's idea of the circumstances.  It had all come upon me so
+swiftly--the discovery of the fire and of the assassins, the passing of
+hope and the coming of despair, that this new turn found my wits
+paralysed and all resources gone from me.  In my head there were
+buzzing sounds as of a man stricken suddenly by sickness.  I thought of
+nothing except of the wall against which I stood, of the man who
+bandaged my eyes and of the bayonets which had glittered in the ruddy
+glow of flames.  That I should be dead when ten seconds were counted I
+could not believe, and then as swiftly the truth must be heard.  "You
+are about to die," said the secret voice in my ear.  "You will never
+see the day.  This is night; you will sleep."
+
+An intolerable interval of silence followed upon this.  I heard the
+shuffling of feet and the sound of voices as though from the far
+distance.  Men were speaking in whispers, and these whispers grew in
+volume until they were like a hoarse murmur of winds about me.  I was
+tempted to cry, "Fire, for God's sake!" and yet I could not utter the
+words.  Indeed, a faintness had come upon me, and I swayed to and fro
+until the volley rang out with a crash of thunder and lights danced
+fantastically before my eyes.  Then I think that I must have fallen
+prone upon the grass.  If this were death, it had come without pain,
+and men had laughed because it came.  God!  Was there ever such
+laughter heard by a man so situated?  Peal upon peal of it--and a
+woman's laughter!
+
+Someone loosed the bands which held my hands, and another forced a
+little brandy between my clenched lips.  I raised myself up, shivering
+as though with an ague.
+
+All about me it was as light and bright as though the sun had risen.
+The great palace flamed with a thunder of sounds and a crash of beams
+most dreadful to hear.  But otherwise the scene was as I had known it
+before they bandaged me, save that Valerie stood at the stairs' head
+swaying in an outburst of mad laughter which fear and pity had
+provoked, while my nephew Leon watched her as she laughed.  A moment
+later and a man appeared and caught her in his arms.  It was the
+Russian, Prince Nicholas, who passed down the steps and was gone from
+the garden before any man could draw upon him.
+
+
+VIII
+
+Leon told me that he thought I must be in the house all the while, but
+that he had hesitated to break in until the assassins had fired it.
+When he found me, I stood alone by the wall, blinded and helpless, but
+not a Russian to be seen.  Who could wonder when the whole garden was
+full of French bayonets.
+
+I left the house with him and we went together to the governor's
+palace.  None knew what had become of my horse, nor did I care
+overmuch.  The Place du Gouvernement itself was alive with our soldiers
+called to put out the fire if they could.  By these we went quickly,
+Leon asking me a hundred questions which I could not answer yet.
+
+"There was a woman there," said I.
+
+He interrupted me with a laugh.
+
+"You think that I did not see her!" he asked.
+
+It being Leon, I thought no such thing.
+
+"We will hunt her out to-morrow," said he, and then we turned about and
+together watched the burning palace.
+
+"A welcome to Moscow!" he cried sardonically.
+
+Ah, if we had known how this welcome was to be repeated in the days to
+come!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE GUILLOTINE
+
+
+I
+
+My nephew, Leon, had sworn to seek out the beautiful young Frenchwoman,
+Valerie, whom we had last seen in the gardens of the burning house; but
+many days elapsed before that came to be, as you shall presently learn.
+
+In the first place, there was far too much to do in Moscow for the army
+to think about women at all.
+
+We had arrived at the end of our journey, and the twelve hundred
+leagues of marching had tired the strongest of us.  Now we would rest
+at the heart of Russia, while the Emperor dictated peace to the Tsar
+and his army made good its losses.  We never so much as dreamed that we
+had pursued a phantom, and that it would lead the Grand Army to its
+destruction.
+
+So you must behold us for many days in Moscow enjoying the fruits of
+our labours and yet finding plenty of work to do.  I have told you
+already that the Guards were quartered in the Palace of the Kremlin,
+whither the Emperor had repaired; and there I took up my residence with
+my nephew Leon, and was occupied for some days in attending to the sick
+who had accompanied us on our long journey from Smolensk.  Though many
+rumours came to me of the strange things that were happening in the
+city beyond the palace, I paid little heed to them.  His Majesty the
+Emperor had set out to conquer Russia, and here he was at the heart of
+their empire.  What remained, then, but to sign a splendid peace and to
+return in triumph to Paris?
+
+This is how things should have been, yet how different they were!
+
+We had been prepared to find the Russian nobles fled from Moscow, but
+the absolute desertion of the city by its people astonished us beyond
+compare.
+
+Often would I go forth into these magnificent streets, to find the
+great houses all shut up, their gardens a solitude, the cafes closed,
+and none but our own soldiers abroad.
+
+Deserted houses everywhere!  The hotels shut up and boarded against the
+stranger.  All the shops denuded of their goods and shuttered and
+barred as though they were prisons.
+
+Such Russians as we met had the most revolting aspect and were clad in
+the coarsest sheepskins.  We knew that the best of them were convicts
+who had been released by the governor on our advent, and now they
+skulked like wolves to do us a mischief in every alley or by-street
+which sheltered them.
+
+For the rest, Moscow might have been a mausoleum.  We danced to the
+music of our own voices; the cheers that were raised were the cheers
+from French throats which heralded only a hollow victory.
+
+The plunder that we seized came to our hands undisputed.  No man
+contended with us save the brigands, and they were like jackals, whose
+howls were chiefly heard by night.
+
+I have often wondered at the sang-froid with which all this was
+received at head-quarters.  None of the staff appeared aware of the
+perils of our situation, nor did the fact that we were already running
+short of provisions alarm our leaders.  Many things we had in
+abundance, and they should have provoked our irony.  It was ridiculous
+to see whole companies of the Guard making merry over casks of French
+liqueur or wallowing like schoolgirls in boxes of sweetmeats.  Yet such
+was the case, and nothing but the actual riches of the city blinded the
+rank and file to the truth.
+
+Oh, what days of plunder they were, and how our good fellows revelled
+in them!
+
+A man had but to sally forth with an axe in his hand to reach the
+riches of a Croesus.  I have seen the veriest Gascons so laden with
+furs and jewels and the wealth of nobles that they themselves, could
+they have conveyed their burdens to Paris, might never have had an
+anxiety about their bread to the end of their days.  It was the
+commonest thing to discover carts and wagons in Moscow piled high with
+the treasures of centuries and led uncontested to the camps of an enemy
+which had found the gates open and the ramparts undefended.  Even the
+Imperial edict against pillage and rapine was useless to prevent this
+spoliation.  The men had suffered much to reach the Holy City, and His
+Majesty the Emperor was wise enough to reward them according to their
+hopes.
+
+Here I must tell you that the common troopers were by no means the only
+offenders in this respect.  There was not an officer in or out of the
+Guards who did not claim his share of the plunder, while he shut his
+eyes to the doings of those under him.  If I myself forbore to take a
+hand in this profitable amusement, it was because my burdens were heavy
+and owed not a little to the state of Moscow even in the early days of
+our occupation.
+
+Then, as afterwards, fire was our almost daily enemy.  One day it would
+be in the bazaars; the next in the poorest quarters of the city; again
+in the houses of the rich, which our troopers had pillaged.  We were
+told the convicts fired the buildings by the governor's orders.  We
+could not believe it, and yet we hunted the rascals down as though they
+were vermin.
+
+I have often wondered what His Majesty the Emperor would have done had
+he known the true state of affairs in Moscow.  He did not know them,
+however, and he was still anxious to propitiate those whom he believed
+to be its people.  Every day we heard the story of the peace which was
+to be signed, and of the profit which was to come to our arms thereby;
+and every day we who served were abroad in street or alley wrestling
+with the flames and smoke of the burning houses, or hanging and
+shooting the incendiaries who had become the enemy.
+
+Little wonder that my nephew Leon had no time for love-making.  Often
+would I ask him if he had heard of or seen the beautiful Valerie again.
+The rascal pretended that he had forgotten her very existence, and yet
+I knew in my heart that he had remembered her.  It was no surprise to
+me when, at the end of the third week, I heard from his servant,
+Gascogne, that he had received a letter from Valerie herself, and that
+it had contained an invitation to dinner in a house beyond the suburbs
+of the city.  When I charged Leon with it he shook his head and smiled
+in his boyish way.
+
+"Oh, mon oncle," he protested, "what time have I for anything like
+that?"
+
+I rejoined that a man has always time for a pretty woman, and at that
+he laughed loudly.
+
+"She asked me to dinner," says he, "but, of course, I shall not go.
+Why, my dear uncle, it would be very dangerous to do so.  Do you not
+know that her friend is Prince Nicholas, who has sworn a vendetta
+against every Frenchman in Moscow?  I should be a fool to do anything
+of the kind."
+
+I agreed that he would be, and really I was not a little astonished at
+his common sense.
+
+Captains of the Guard are rarely prudent where a pretty face is
+concerned, and Valerie St. Antoine was one of the most beautiful women
+I had ever seen in all my life.  It was amazing to me that Leon should
+have learned so much wisdom in so short a space of time, and I plumed
+myself upon his sagacity.  Oh, how easily do we old fogeys deceive
+ourselves!  Not three days had elapsed before I learned that he had
+written to the lady, and on the fourth I heard with some regret that he
+had gone to dine with her.
+
+
+II
+
+Now, I do not know why it was, but this affair had caused me much
+uneasiness from the beginning, and when I heard, upon the evening of
+September 28, that my nephew had left the palace and gone to dine with
+Valerie, a disquietude quite beyond ordinary attended the discovery.
+
+Possibly Leon's own words had something to do with it.  He had said
+that such an invitation might be a trap, and although the opinion was
+expressed as a joke, there remained a doubt in my own mind which no
+mere assurance could remove.
+
+Remember the circumstances.  We had discovered already that Valerie St.
+Antoine was the friend, and more than the friend, of a man who had
+sworn to exterminate the French in Moscow.  The reality of the tie
+which bound them had been made apparent to me when I was with her in
+Prince Boris's house, and I could conceive no honest circumstance which
+would justify the invitation to my nephew Leon.  When I questioned his
+servant, Gascogne, that good fellow seemed no less uneasy than I myself.
+
+"There have been five officers from this regiment lost in Moscow this
+very week," said he.  "I warned Captain Leon, but he would not listen
+to me.  A woman.  Faugh!  It is the usual story, major.  They all have
+a rendezvous, and none of them returns.  Why did not the captain
+consult you?  I told him that it was a trick, and he answered me by
+putting on his best uniform and calling a droshky.  Major, we shall be
+lucky if we see him again."
+
+I took no such view as this, and yet a certain foreboding of ill was
+not lightly to be put aside.
+
+Leon had done as so many others in his regiment, and some of those had
+never returned to the palace.  It might even be that the girl Valerie
+had not written the letter at all; and this latter thought was so
+disquieting that I sent Gascogne out to seek the driver of the droshky
+and to bring the fellow to the palace.  When he came, a few sharp words
+soon had the truth from him.
+
+"My good fellow," said I, "you will drive me immediately to the house
+to which you have just taken my nephew, Captain de Courcelles.  If you
+play any trick upon me I will have you hanged at the gate of the
+Kremlin.  Now, choose for yourself."
+
+This was no idle threat, nor was it without its effect.  The man fell
+into a frenzy of fear, while great drops of sweat stood upon his
+forehead, and he protested his innocence before God and the saints.
+
+"Then let him put it to the proof," said I to the interpreter, "and
+bring his droshky here immediately."
+
+Ten minutes later we were passing out of the western gate, and Sergeant
+Bardot, of the Fusiliers, was at my side.  They called him "the
+antelope" in the regiment, and there was no nimbler fellow in all the
+Guards.
+
+"Captain Leon has gone to meet a woman," said I.  "It may be a trap,
+and, if so, we must get him out of it.  I can count upon your
+discretion, sergeant?"
+
+He answered that he was altogether at my service, and I could see that
+the prospect of an adventure pleased him greatly.
+
+"They are devils, these Russians," said he, "and it is just as well
+that we should go.  I trust we shall be in good time, major.  The
+regiment could not afford to lose Captain Leon.  There is no better
+officer in the Guards."
+
+I agreed with that.  There was no better officer in the Guards.  If he
+were in any danger we must save him.  So many had fallen in Moscow at a
+woman's nod that I ceased to ask myself what part curiosity played in
+this adventure.
+
+Sufficient that Leon had gone to dine with Nicholas, the Russian, who
+had sworn a vendetta against every French officer in the city.
+
+
+III
+
+It was nine o'clock when we left the barracks, and half an hour later
+when the droshky rolled out upon the great north road to Petersburg.
+
+So hot was it that hundreds of our fellows were sleeping in the open
+parks which abound on the border of the city, and their bivouac fires
+glowed beneath the pines and showed many a scene of tipsy revelry.
+With them were some of those women who cling to the skirts of an army
+as flies to a pasty, and these hussies capered about the fires in song
+and dance, while the sorriest music set them whooping like wild men at
+a fair.  We paid little attention to them, but thought rather of the
+wide road ahead of us and of our unknown destination.
+
+Now, this was a hazardous journey, as any man who was with me in Moscow
+will bear witness.
+
+It is true that the city and surrounding country were wholly in our
+power; but we knew very well that bands of wild Cossacks ravaged the
+neighbourhood and were ready enough to butcher any Frenchman they could
+find.  The road itself lay chiefly through pine woods, which afforded
+good harbourage to these brigands, and more than once I thought that I
+saw a horseman watching us as we went.  When I mentioned as much to the
+sergeant he pooh-poohed it, as such a man would, declaring that our own
+patrols were in the district and would deal with such scum.
+
+"We are not worth powder and shot," he said with a laugh, "and, in any
+case, we shall have the satisfaction of shooting the driver if anything
+happens to us."
+
+This seemed to afford him some consolation.  I noticed that he took out
+his pistol and primed it, as though very ready to begin if the
+miserable coachman afforded him any pretext.  We, however, drove on
+without event, and when we had covered perhaps a couple of leagues the
+driver turned suddenly down a grassy path through the wood and
+presently declared that we had reached our destination.
+
+It was not very dark here, and for the moment I thought that the fellow
+had played a trick upon us.
+
+We appeared to have reached a veritable forest, great chestnut trees
+taking the place of the pines and a wide pool shining under the moon's
+rays where the roadway ended.  Presently, however, I discerned the
+glimmer of a lamp amidst a copse upon the right-hand side, and the
+droshky driver indicated with his whip that it was the house which
+Captain Leon had visited.
+
+An uglier place could not be imagined.  The dark groves of stupendous
+trees, the silent pool, the remote situation of the habitation,
+affected me strangely.  I was convinced by this time that my nephew had
+fallen into a trap, and that we should be lucky men if we found him
+alive.  Even the imperturbable Bardot could not put a good face upon
+it.  He showed his pistol to the coachman and commanded him to stay
+where he was.  Then he followed me down the grove towards the house.
+
+I have told you that it was hidden in the trees; but this will give you
+but a poor idea of its situation.  We saw upon nearer approach that the
+pool or lake was fed by a winding river, upon an island of which the
+house was built, so that it was entirely surrounded by water, which a
+mediaeval drawbridge spanned.
+
+The building itself had all the air of the keep of an ancient castle,
+being no more than a great round tower built upon the island, with a
+miserable outhouse at its foot and a barn-like structure to the south,
+which served, I doubt not, for a stable.  Save for a glimmer of light
+which showed through a considerable loophole above the drawbridge,
+there was no evidence of occupation either above or below.  The place
+seemed as silent as the grave; our own footsteps upon the sward were a
+heavy sound upon the silence of that summer's night.
+
+To be sure, we approached very cautiously.  We must have been at least
+fifty paces from the water's edge when Bardot went down flat upon his
+stomach and began to crawl towards the river.
+
+"If I whistle," he said, "come to me."
+
+I answered that I would; and after an interminable interval of waiting
+I heard his signal.  When I came up to his side he pointed to the
+figure of a man who stood sentry beyond the bridge.
+
+"Look," he said.  "The fellow is drunk.  They are all drunk in this
+cursed country.  If we sounded the reveille he would not hear us.  We
+must go over and tell him so.  You can swim, of course?"
+
+I shook my head, for the truth was I could not swim a stroke.  When I
+discovered that he was in a like predicament, the tragic irony of our
+position began to be realised for the first time.  There we were, fifty
+paces from the door, behind which poor Leon might already be in
+jeopardy.  I knew now that the girl Valerie had not written the letter,
+and this was just the trap I had supposed it to be.  Yet there we
+stood, as helpless as any child from a woodlander's hut.  Even Bardot
+could make nothing of it.
+
+"If I had known!" he would say, just as though it had been in my power
+to tell him.  Such folly angered me.  I got up regardless of the risk
+of discovery, and began to make my way back to the carriage.  The man
+should gallop back to Moscow, said I, and we would return within the
+hour with a troop of cavalry, and this time we would bring our own
+bridge.
+
+This was in my mind, though the despair of it needs no apology.
+
+"A thousand to one," I argued, "that Leon will not be alive when we
+return; and yet we might avenge him!"
+
+A fierce desire to beat down the walls of the accursed house, to break
+in upon the assassins and to butcher them where they stood, possessed
+me as a fever.  There was not a man in the regiment who, would not have
+galloped through the night at Leon's call.  Pity then if we might not
+avenge him.
+
+This I had said, when another whistle from the river bank arrested my
+attention and sent me back to Bardot.
+
+He still lay behind the bush which concealed us, and his hand was
+raised in warning.  When I rejoined him he pulled me down, and speaking
+in a deep whisper, he bade me listen.  A boat was being rowed across
+the river.  We saw it plainly in the moonlight--a great, crazy tub with
+a frail girl for its pilot.  It touched the bank some fifty yards from
+the place where we lay hidden, and instantly the girl leapt from it and
+disappeared in the brushwood.
+
+"Valerie St. Antoine, by all that is holy!" said I.
+
+The mystery was deepening truly, but we were nearer to it now, and
+without a word spoken we strode toward the deserted boat and
+immediately began to pull across the river.
+
+
+IV
+
+Meanwhile what of Leon, and what had happened to him since he left
+Moscow?  I shall try to tell you in a few words, that you may
+understand both his situation and ours, and the meaning of what was to
+come after.
+
+The letter he had received was such as a soldier of the Guard is well
+acquainted with, and he discovered in it nothing out of the ordinary.
+
+A pretty woman had fallen in love with him and desired to see him
+again.  There must have been two hundred who had done that since he
+quitted Paris, yet few who drew from him so swift a response.
+
+Was not Mademoiselle Valerie a fellow-countrywoman, and had not these
+two looked into each other's eyes as lovers are wont to do?
+
+I remembered the impression she had made upon him in the prince's
+palace, and how he had sworn to hunt her out at Moscow; and I for one
+could not wonder that his heart leapt when she wrote to him and named a
+rendezvous to his liking.
+
+He was to dine with her, the letter said, and her carriage would carry
+him to the barracks afterwards.  He little knew the kind of journey
+that it was meant to be, nor what would lie under the tarpaulin which
+the assassins had made ready for him.
+
+So off goes our gay cavalier, dressed in his best and as cock-a-hoop as
+a page-boy who has been kissed by a duchess.
+
+The warnings he received fell on deaf ears.  He knew that the regiment
+had lost good officers who went out upon just such a foolish errand as
+this; but they had gone to Russian houses, while Valerie was a
+Frenchwoman who bore an honoured name.  There could be nothing to fear
+in such society.  He would dine with her and tell her what she most
+desired to hear.  This was a Guardsman's proper employment, and he
+would not be doing his duty if he shirked it.  To give him his due,
+Leon was rarely remiss in these matters.
+
+So you will understand why he did not suspect anything--even when they
+drove through the wood and came to the drawbridge.  She would desire
+secrecy, of course, and this place appeared to be a very citadel of
+love.  Leon merely remarked that aspect of it when he crossed the
+bridge and the great gate which Ivan the Terrible had built was shut
+upon him.
+
+She would be alone, and he would find her complacent.  The words were
+hardly said when he found himself face to face with Nicholas, the
+princely assassin, whose name had struck terror to the heart of many a
+French prisoner.  Now a man trained to the surprises of war has some
+command of himself whatever the circumstances.
+
+Leon was such a man, and you may be sure he did not betray himself.
+
+Though the peril of the situation was now fully revealed, and he
+understood the trap into which he had fallen, what should he do but bow
+in a grand manner to his Highness, and declare his pleasure at that
+_rencontre_?  The prince in his turn affected to be as agreeably
+surprised.  He apologised for the absence of Mademoiselle Valerie, whom
+he declared to be confined to her room with an indisposition; and upon
+that he led the way immediately to the great apartment in which the
+supper was to be served.
+
+This was nothing else than the round tower which Ivan had built, and a
+strange place it was, surely, for the entertainment of a man's friends.
+Leon observed that the walls of the apartment were hung entirely in
+black velvet, while at the northern arch there was a platform similarly
+draped in black, but with its plain boards strewn with rushes, as they
+strew a scaffold in my own country.  So ominous was this that even my
+nephew's sang-froid was hard put to it to forbear a remark; but the
+prince smiled affably all the time, and appeared to be quite unaware
+that there was anything extraordinary about this habitation.  Leon
+admitted that he spoke French like a fellow-countryman, and his first
+act was to introduce my nephew to some dozen officers of the Russian
+Guard who had come to the house to make merry with him.
+
+These were fine fellows, clad, as he, in the splendid white and gold
+uniform of the Tsar's cuirassiers.  They welcomed a brother officer
+with professed cordiality, and the prince commanding that supper should
+be served, they turned with one accord to the table and began to fall
+upon the viands as though ravenous with hunger.  Will you be surprised
+to hear that Leon did not imitate them in this?  I shall tell you why
+in a word: he had seen a dead body in the straw upon the platform, and,
+looking at it a second time, he perceived that it was a trunk without a
+head.
+
+You may imagine what this discovery meant--even to a man of Leon's
+disposition.  At first he would have it that the whole thing was one of
+Nicholas's jokes--the draping of the room, the straw upon the mock
+scaffold, and the ghastly figure which the rushes tried to hide.  Then
+he remembered the prince's evil reputation and the stories of his
+savagery, which had been told at many a bivouac.  Here was one of those
+fanatics who believed that Moscow was the holy city, and that we, the
+French, were so many barbarians who had profaned the sacred shrine of
+Russia.  No trick was too treacherous to be employed against us, no
+trap was not justified which had Frenchmen for its object.  Again and
+again, as we had marched across Russia, the throats of our fellows had
+been cut in many a lonely farmhouse, and many a courtesan had lured
+honest men to their destruction.
+
+So Leon sat there with his eyes fixed upon the body and the secret
+words of warning drumming in his ears.  What hope had he of escape from
+such a place?  He remembered the moat and the drawbridge, the lonely
+wood and the dark groves about it, and despair fell upon him.  It
+remained but to die as the Guards know how; and, believing that his
+death was imminent, he refused no longer the goblets of wine which were
+offered to him, and affected a merriment as loud as that of the noble
+assassins who had entrapped him.
+
+A remarkable feast, truly, as you shall: judge by his own account of
+it.  The meats!  were served on dishes of solid gold; the goblets were
+of the same precious metal.  They drank champagne from our own kingdom
+of France; the rich red wines of Italy, while the joyous fruits of the
+Rhineland vineyards were not lacking.  The food itself had an Eastern
+flavour, and many of the dishes were highly spiced and Eastern.  For
+music there were fiddles in a gallery above, and even the distant
+voices of women singing a light chanson at the back of the stage.
+
+Leon raised his eyes to the musicians' gallery from time to time, and
+fell to wondering if Valerie were among the singers.  Surely she had
+never written the letter which brought him to this house--she, a
+Frenchwoman!  He could not believe it; and yet the note had been in a
+woman's handwriting.  Possibly the writer was one of those who now sang
+disreputable songs behind the curtains of the gallery.  Leon pitied
+rather than condemned the poor wretch who had been the prince's
+instrument.  When he remembered that Valerie loved this man he could
+have taken a knife from the table and killed him where he sat.
+
+His Highness may have guessed what was in the young man's mind, but if
+he did so, a courtly art concealed it.  Never was there a gayer
+companion.  He told stories of all the cities to which peace or war had
+carried him--of our own Paris and gloomy Petersburg, of gay Vienna and
+that monstrously dull town of London, of which the English boast.
+Nearly all concerned the women of these places and the successes he had
+had among them.
+
+His companions meanwhile listened with a deference which so high a
+personage commanded.  Their jokes were often _sotto voce_, and when the
+prince laughed they laughed in sycophantine imitation.  With all this
+Leon plainly perceived that the feast was but a preparation for some
+greater scene to come.  His eyes went often now to the curtain above
+the gallery, as though he would read a secret there.  I do not think he
+was astonished when for one brief instant the same curtain trembled and
+was drawn a little way back, to disclose the face of Valerie.  She was
+in the house, then, after all!  He began to believe that she had
+written the letter, and for that he would have strangled her willingly.
+Then he heard the prince speaking to him, and, the curtain being
+dropped back, he turned to listen to a disquisition upon French
+politics.
+
+"Your Revolution," said his Highness, "was the greatest event in
+history.  I have just been telling my friend, Count Rafalovitch here,
+that my father was in Paris in the year 1794, and that his dearest
+friend, the Chevalier Constantini, was executed by the miscreants on
+the Place de la Greve.  He brought with him to Russia a model of the
+guillotine, by which so many of your great men perished.  I have it
+here in this house, if you are curious to see it.  It was made by the
+great Dr. Guillotin himself, one of the first to fall by his own
+invention, as you know.  Shall we have it built up on yonder platform,
+M. le Capitaine?  It will help us to pass the time until the musicians
+have refreshed themselves."
+
+Now, all this was said pleasantly enough, as though it were the
+merriest of jests, and yet to Leon it was not without significance.
+The cat-like manner of the speaker; the sudden lust of blood which came
+into his eyes as he leaned over the table and addressed my nephew; the
+restless movements of the others round about; all betrayed a design so
+dastardly that no pretence could conceal it.  Instantly it dawned upon
+Leon that the man whose body lay in the rushes had been murdered by
+that very instrument.  Death no Guardsman fears, but the humiliation of
+such a death as this might have appalled the stoutest heart; and Leon
+believed now that they meant to kill him.  He drained the heavy goblet
+of its wine to hide his face from those who watched him so curiously,
+and when he had set the goblet down there was a smile upon his lips.
+
+"I should like to see it, by all means," he said to the prince.  "It is
+odd that I, a Frenchman, am so ignorant, but, upon my word of honour, I
+have never met 'Dr. Guillotine' in all my life."
+
+"Then you shall meet him now," said his Highness, and touching a bell
+upon the table, he summoned his servants to the room.
+
+
+V
+
+Sergeant Bardot and myself, meanwhile, had crossed the river, as you
+may well have guessed.  We found the tub old and crazy, and were but
+poor watermen.  Yet we reached the parapet upon the farther side, and
+clambering up, we stood and listened if any had discovered us.  The
+sentry, however, made no motion, and perceiving that he was drunk, as
+we had imagined, we crept towards him and were upon him before he could
+utter a sound.  A moment later he went, a cloth about his mouth,
+headlong into the moat below us, and we stood there watching his
+struggles, his musket in Bardot's hands.
+
+It had been a swift coup, and some have complained of what we did.  But
+remember that this was a Russian stronghold, and that it imprisoned a
+good comrade, and few will condemn us.  It was our life or his, and we
+did not hesitate for Leon's sake.  I would do the same to-morrow for
+the meanest trooper in the Emperor's army.
+
+I say that we killed the man, and yet for the moment the deed did not
+help us.  There was the great gate, shut and barred against the
+stranger, and twenty men might not have opened it.  If we beat upon it
+and they answered us, what then?  The house would be full of Russians,
+and we were but two against them.  By a stratagem alone could we save
+Leon's life, and calling upon our wits, we began to make a tour of the
+house to spy out its weaknesses if we could.
+
+These were not readily apparent.  Even to an old soldier like Bardot
+the place seemed impregnable.  Everywhere the rugged stone walls
+confronted us.  There was no door other than that which the sentry had
+guarded.  The windows were so many slits in those ramparts of stone.
+There was not even a water-pipe upon which a man could have got a
+foothold.  We could but stand there and gaze impotently upon that
+prison which had defied the centuries.  It was a torture to me to
+remember that these impregnable walls answered for the liberty of one
+so dear to me as my nephew.
+
+
+VI
+
+I have told you that there had been a glimmer of light shining from a
+loop-hole in the tower when first we drove up to the place.  It was
+beneath this we came to a halt and stood to reckon with the situation.
+Bardot's eyes were quick as an animal's, and it was he who perceived a
+second opening in the wall, but not so high as the other, and without a
+light beyond to disclose it.  When he suggested that he should climb up
+on my shoulders and get a footing at this spot, I could but ask him
+what he hoped to effect thereby.
+
+"Had you a rope," said I, "perchance we could look through the window,
+but since you have not a rope----"
+
+He interrupted me with a little cry.  "Major," says he, "there was a
+rope in the boat."
+
+I retorted that we had used it to make the ship fast, but he laughed at
+that.
+
+"We shall return by the drawbridge," says he.  "Do you stand sentinel
+here, and I will get what we want."  And with that he was off like a
+shot, and for some minutes I saw him no more.
+
+The interval was spent in listening to a sound of distant music, which
+I could not hear very plainly.  There were women's voices and the music
+of fiddles, and it seemed to me that I had heard some of their songs in
+the casinos of my own Paris.  Such a surprise was very welcome and put
+heart into me.  Leon could hardly be in peril while women were singing
+to him.  I told Bardot as much when he returned, and his curiosity
+concerning the voices was not less than my own.
+
+"Let us have a look at them," says he.  And with that he climbed upon
+my shoulders, and throwing the rope he had brought from the boat deftly
+about the iron bar of the window he pulled himself up like a monkey,
+and so gained a foothold on the ledge.
+
+For a long time now he did not utter a word.  I thought that I heard
+him laughing softly, and then, of a sudden, he appeared to grow deeply
+interested in what was happening in the room.
+
+"What do you see, Bardot?" I asked him, anxiety getting the better of
+me.
+
+He did not reply, but peered the closer betwixt the bars.
+
+"Oh!" cried I impatiently, "there will be some woman for a certainty."
+
+His answer was to take a pistol from his belt and to look to the
+priming.  I could see him quite clearly, one arm being about the iron
+bar and the other upon the trigger, which he had cocked.
+
+"Good God!" I cried.  "You will bring them out on us."
+
+He did not heed me, but throwing his head back, he said in a loud
+whisper: "They are going to butcher your nephew."  At the same moment I
+heard a dreadful scream from the tower itself.
+
+"Help me up!" cried I, gone mad at my own impotence.  "Why do you not
+fire at them?"
+
+He nodded his head, and thrusting his pistol through the bars, he
+snapped at an unseen enemy.  The weapon did not fire, and he threw it
+down to me angrily.  "Your own," he cried, and came a little way down
+the rope to reach it.
+
+The next minute there was a loud report, and upon that a hollow sound,
+as though a great bell had been struck a heavy blow by a hammer.
+
+"Now," cried Bardot quickly, "to the bridge!"
+
+I did not question him, and we ran round together to fling down the
+bridge, the windlass running out with the sound of a great ship's
+cable.  It seemed inconceivable that the Russians in the place did not
+attack us.  This, however, did not happen.
+
+We ran across the bridge and there crouched as two hunters who
+themselves were hunted.
+
+"Listen!" says Bardot, bending his ear to the earth.
+
+I imitated him, and heard a strange sound.  It was the thunder of
+cavalry through the wood.
+
+"The Cossacks!" cried I.  It seemed to me then that I should never see
+poor Leon again.
+
+
+VII
+
+Within the tower the prince was now introducing my nephew to "Dr.
+Guillotine."
+
+All the resources of a barbarous masquerade were employed in this sorry
+entertainment.
+
+The stage itself would have served for a miniature Theatre Francais.
+Brawny Cossacks, clad like the _sansculottes_ of the Revolution,
+swarmed up on the mock scaffold and cried curses upon their prisoner.
+The executioner was a huge Tartar with a monstrous black beard and a
+knife at his girdle.  The knitting women of the Place de la Greve were
+not forgotten.  A bevy of hags squatted about the platform and pointed
+their lean fingers at the miserable prisoner.
+
+Had Leon a doubt hitherto as to the meaning of this foul business, it
+must have surrendered at the moment when he recognised one of his old
+troopers among the mock condemned, and perceived that the Russians
+meant to kill him.
+
+Leaping to his feet, he cried an oath upon the outrage and commanded
+them to stop.
+
+It was a vain outburst.  Two of the prince's men had him by the arms at
+the first movement and pinned him to his chair, while his Highness
+derided his courage.
+
+"Here is a French Guardsman who has a woman's heart," said he, his
+fellows shouting with ironic laughter at the sally.  "We give him a
+little play, such as we have seen in Paris, and behold! he is ready to
+faint.  A glass of wine, Michael, for the poor gentleman!  Do you not
+see how ill he is?"
+
+A goblet of wine was offered to and spurned by my nephew.  He perceived
+that he was helpless and that the reputation of the Guards lay in his
+keeping.  It remained to bear himself with what dignity he could, and
+turning to the prince, he exclaimed very coolly: "I apologise to your
+Highness, for it is not possible that you can be in earnest."  And so
+he watched the drama to the end.
+
+They had now dragged the struggling hussar to the plank of the
+guillotine and thrown and bound him there.  Very deliberately they
+pushed him beneath the great knife, and then, all crying "Death to the
+French!" the blade fell and silenced for ever the shrieks of the
+unhappy wretch they had butchered.
+
+Leon declares that from this moment Prince Nicholas was little better
+than a madman.  His cries of "Bravo!" were such as the insane might
+have uttered.  Clutching my nephew by the arm, he dragged him to the
+scaffold, saying:
+
+"You do not know 'Dr. Guillotine'?  Come and be introduced, then.  Come
+and hear his music.  You are a Frenchman and ignorant?  Impossible, my
+friend, impossible."
+
+So he raved, while all in the room took up the cry of "Impossible!" and
+began to shout and dance in their drunken frenzy like madmen.
+
+Leon fought for his life then as he had never fought before in all wars
+our Emperor has waged.  A strong man, he threw even the Cossacks from
+him, struck them senseless with any weapon that came to his hands, and
+was up and down like a cork upon a billow; but all useless, as you may
+well imagine.
+
+When they got him to the scaffold he knew that his hour had come, and a
+great calm possessed him.
+
+"I congratulate the Prince of the Assassins," said he to his Highness.
+"It is only in such a country as this that the butchers are ennobled."
+And with that he walked straight towards the executioner and held out
+his hands.
+
+The man seized him as though he were a sheep.  The prince himself began
+to raise the knife by the rope and to caress its gleaming edge.  Surely
+Leon had but a moment to live.  He thought as much, and a passionate
+desire for life set him trembling.  That he, so young, he whom so many
+loved, he to whom day was so fair a thing and the night but a witchery
+of woman's eyes--that he should perish here, butchered by the insane in
+an hour of their frenzy!  God surely would not permit such a crime as
+that!  Alas! he had forgotten how to pray these many years, and he but
+stood there, defying them as any one of his Majesty's Guards would have
+done.
+
+"Assassins!" he cried; and then, as a challenge: "There is not one of
+you that would dare to cross swords with me!"
+
+They but laughed at him the more, and the prince now pulled the knife
+so high that all in the room could see it.  He was still laughing; but
+some glimmer of reason had come to him, and that spirit of vengeance
+which animated him could no longer be denied.
+
+"You murdered twenty thousand honest people with your guillotine in
+Paris," says he to Leon, as though a hussar of the year 1812 could be
+responsible for what was done in Paris twenty years before.  "Now you
+must come here to burn the Holy City.  Very well; we are going to teach
+you a lesson."
+
+He turned to the executioner, and giving him the sign, the wretch threw
+Leon upon the plank.
+
+It was then that Bardot, at the window, fired his pistol and struck the
+great bell high in the tower above.  How much would I have given could
+I have been at his side at that moment.  All that I heard were the loud
+shouts of surprise, the cries of one man to the other that this was an
+ambush, and, above all, the prince's screams when the great knife fell
+and severed his arm at the elbow as neatly as any surgeon could have
+done.
+
+Such was the truth.  At the moment of the alarm Prince Nicholas had
+loosed the rope, and, trying to catch it again, he stumbled forward and
+the great blade caught him by the elbow, and his hand and arm went
+rolling to the floor.
+
+With a loud cry Leon now wrenched himself from his executioners.  All
+were making for the gate of the tower, for they believed that the
+French were upon them, and no man thought of anything but his own
+safety.
+
+
+VIII
+
+Bardot and myself believed that the Cossacks were galloping to the
+place, and we lay in the shadow of the bridge, hardly daring to breathe
+lest the Russians in the house should discover us.  When the latter
+came headlong out of the tower this alarm seemed unnecessary, for it
+was plain they were making for the forest.
+
+"In five minutes," I said, "they will meet their fellows and all return
+again to the butchery."
+
+I little knew that Valerie St. Antoine had found the droshky in the
+wood, and commanding the driver in the name of Prince Nicholas, had
+driven at full gallop to the barracks to bring help to her countrymen.
+
+Such was the case, however, and the men who now rode to Ivan's Tower
+were of Leon's own troop; honest fellows who swore a bitter vengeance
+while they rode.  They fell upon the Russians at the heart of the wood,
+and what they did there is best told at a bivouac.  I went immediately
+to the tower and looked there for my nephew.
+
+When I found him he lay senseless upon the scaffold, and at first I
+thought he was dead.  The Guard, however, is obstinate in refusing to
+die, and when we had forced brandy between his lips and had bathed his
+forehead, he opened his eyes and asked where he was.
+
+This I feared to tell him, but presently he sat up and looked about him.
+
+"Ah!" he said, "I remember."  And then he asked: "Where is Valerie St.
+Antoine?"
+
+"She should be in Moscow by this time," said I.  "Why do you ask?"
+
+"Because," said he, "I am still looking for her, mon oncle."
+
+I shook my head.  It seemed to me that the young woman in question had
+proved herself to be but the harbinger of ill.  And yet I could see
+that my nephew's mind was made up, and that what he had done to-night
+he would do again if Valerie St. Antoine did but lift her pretty hand
+to beckon him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE TREASURE IN THE WOODS
+
+I
+
+It was on the 18th day of October in the year 1812 that we first heard
+of His Majesty's intention to abandon Moscow.
+
+This came to us as a very great surprise.
+
+It is true that we had had a terrible time in the city, which was now
+become a ruin, the convicts having burned down a great part of it; but
+we had learned to make the best of affairs and what with our plunder
+and our pleasures the time went merrily enough.  I myself was perhaps
+the hardest-worked man in the regiment.  So many people were burned by
+the fires in Moscow, so many were injured in the street brawls, that
+the hospitals were quite full, and I rarely knew a moment of leisure.
+
+My nephew, Captain Leon, was situated very differently.  There was
+hardly a day that he did not tell me of some new adventure with a
+woman, and when I would reproach him he reminded me that I had been
+young myself and should know the habits of a soldier better.
+
+This was in Moscow after Valerie St. Antoine had done us so great a
+service upon a memorable night.  Though Leon watched for her and
+offered five hundred francs to any man who would tell him of her
+whereabouts, he never saw her again while we were in the city, and when
+we did meet her this great army of ours was but a skeleton.
+
+How little we foresaw the doom awaiting us when we quitted Moscow on
+that sunny October day!
+
+Everything went as merry as a marriage bell then.  We knew that we were
+returning to our own France and we cared not a scudo for the reason.
+The Emperor, we said, had been too much for these wily Russians, and
+they had surrendered everything.  The truth was far otherwise--it was
+the Russians who had been too clever for us, and burning down their
+beautiful city, had left us to a woeful fate.  Of this I am now about
+to speak to you.
+
+
+II
+
+The story begins with a woman, as it began aforetime when we entered
+the city.
+
+There had been three days of beautiful weather when we of the Guard
+rode in fine spirits toward our own country and gave no thought but to
+the plunder we were carrying out of Russia.
+
+I myself had many a good thing in the wagon, and I remember well a
+great gold plate set with diamonds, which had been torn from Ivan's
+Cross when we tried to pull it down from the cathedral in the Kremlin.
+
+The men themselves were loaded with pretty trinkets, and carried furs
+enough to clothe Paris.  The costliest skins--ermine and sable and lion
+and bear--were used for every conceivable purpose; and it is no wonder
+that the army was followed by thousands of Jews, waiting to buy these
+treasures when their owners should be weary of them.
+
+Truly would I say that such a scene as our exit from Moscow was never
+written before in the story of warfare, nor will ever be written again.
+
+Imagine a great white wooded plain, a sandy road at the heart of it,
+and upon this road an interminable procession of carts and wagons to
+carry the baggage of the Grand Army.
+
+Upon either side in the fields go cavalry and infantry, every man's
+knapsack packed with loot, the commonest troopers sucking the rarest
+liqueurs from costly bottles, the poorest fellows smoking pipes with
+bowls of gold and tobacco that only princes should have been able to
+afford.  All was hope and gaiety.  Paris lay twelve hundred leagues
+from us, yet to Paris and our homes we were going.  Who shall wonder if
+the trumpets blew a merry blast and the bands set our feet dancing?
+Was not the Emperor in our midst, and should we not return in a blaze
+of glory?
+
+In such content we marched for three days.  There was not much
+discipline observed, and the men were permitted to go pretty well as
+they pleased, it being always understood that the dreaded Cossacks were
+on our flank and that any foolhardiness might bring a disaster upon us.
+This kept the stragglers more or less in touch with the main body of
+the army; but sometimes we officers would ride away into the woods to
+see what kind of hospitality we could find at a country house and to
+enjoy it according to our opportunities.
+
+It was on such an occasion that Leon and I first met Zayde, and came
+near to losing our lives because of her.  I must tell you of this
+before going on to speak of the other days which followed, when the
+north wind began to blow and all that wide landscape lay under its veil
+of the cruel snow.
+
+We had been riding through a shady wood about a mile from the high road
+to Smolensk.  Someone had discovered that there was a famous old
+monastery in the district noted for its hospitality; and although we
+expected little from any Russian monk, we were quite able to help
+ourselves should the opportunity be offered.  This quest carried us
+farther and farther away from our comrades, until at last we appeared
+to have lost the road altogether, and to be as far away from any
+monastery as ever we were in all our lives.  My own thought was for
+going back immediately, but the younger head would hear nothing of it,
+and my nephew protested loudly that I was becoming a coward.
+
+"It is the good living in Moscow that has destroyed your nerve, uncle,"
+said he.  "How could we be better off than we are in this place?  Soft
+grass to gallop on, shady trees above, and the sun shining as though it
+were mid-summer in our own France.  We shall come to the monastery
+presently, and they will give us wine that Adam brewed.  There will be
+plenty of loot to add to our saddle-bags, and perhaps there will be
+sisters to comfort us.  Why should we go back?  The road is over there
+any time we have a fancy to rejoin it."
+
+I retorted by reminding him that the Cossacks were out, and that we
+might encounter them at any time.  More than once I thought that I
+heard a distant sound of galloping, and I drew rein to call his
+attention to it.  But he would not listen to me, and still riding
+southwards, as it seemed, he pulled up at length and cried in real
+astonishment:
+
+"Why, uncle, what did I tell you?  Here is Cleopatra herself and her
+treasures with her, as I am alive!"
+
+I came up to him and saw what had arrested his attention.  There was a
+deep pit before us and in it a Cossack and a woman.  The former sprang
+up at our coming, and drawing a pistol from his belt, he snapped it at
+Leon's head.  Happily the powder did not fire, and seeing that we were
+two to one, the fellow hurled the weapon at my nephew's horse and
+immediately bolted for the shelter of the woods.
+
+So we were alone with the lady and her treasure, and this, at a modest
+estimate, must have been worth half a million of francs.
+
+
+III
+
+I have never seen such riches spread in a green wood before, nor am I
+likely to do so if I live to a hundred years.
+
+Consisting of jewels chiefly, there were other objects there and all
+precious beyond words.
+
+Great ropes of Eastern pearls, diamonds and emeralds; Indian images in
+solid gold; the most wonderful robes of ermine and sable; jewelled
+scabbards that should have come from Damascus--all these lay littered
+upon the grass by the side of the impassive woman, who now looked at us
+with the eyes of a child and uttered no word either of protest or of
+appeal.
+
+Certainly she was a remarkably beautiful creature.
+
+Not more than seventeen years of age, she had hair as golden as the
+sands of the sea, the white skin of the Circassian and the dark eyes of
+the Persian beauty.
+
+Her dress was an odd compromise between the East and the West.
+
+She had baggy breeches of blue silk, high riding-boots of Russian
+leather, a white and gold coat to her waist, and the kepi of the
+Austrian hussar.  Over all she wore a superb cloak of ermine which
+would have brought a fortune could it have been sold in our own Paris.
+
+Such was the apparition which confronted us in that lonely wood.
+
+Needless to say that we were both greatly moved by it; Leon chiefly, I
+fear, by the girl's big eyes; I by the wonders of the treasure which
+lay about her.  To go down into the pit and to introduce ourselves was
+the work of an instant.  Leon told her briefly that he was a French
+officer, and he begged leave to protect her.  To this she answered not
+a word; but I could see that she was not displeased, and presently with
+a child's laugh she dragged him down beside her.
+
+I know Leon so well, and have seen so many women fall a victim to his
+pleasing airs that this act did not surprise me as much as it should
+have done.  None the less, I was astonished when presently the girl
+bade me sit also, and turning to one of the great bags beside her, she
+produced food and wine and set it before us.
+
+The odd thing was that she could not speak a word of any language with
+which we tried her.
+
+Of Russian I had learned a few sentences during our stay in Moscow, and
+German I spoke with some fluency; but neither the one nor the other was
+the slightest use; nor, need I say, had she any French.  Thus we came
+to signs and mouthing, in which my nephew appeared to be so proficient
+that he was kissing her within twenty minutes of the encounter and
+hugging her like a bear before the meal was done.
+
+Well, we finished the meal, and then, pointing to the wood, indicated
+to the girl that we must go.  She had tried to tell us her name, which
+we made out to be something like Zoida or Zayde, and we asked her as
+well as we could to accompany us on our road and let us help her with
+the treasure.  The astonishing thing was that she appeared almost
+indifferent to the existence of the latter, laughing like a child when
+we pointed to it, and throwing the diamonds about as though they had
+been pebbles.  This angered me, for I saw the worth of the stuff; and
+presently, speaking in a wrathful tone, I commanded her to pack the
+things in the box from which they had been taken and to follow us.  The
+new turn appeared to alarm her not a little, and she sat crouching
+there like a frightened gnome while Leon and I put the things in their
+cases and began to pack them upon our horses.  How they came to be in
+that remote wood we knew no more than the dead; but it would clearly
+have been a crime to leave them there, and indeed we had not gone many
+paces upon the road before the secret of their presence was discovered.
+
+There was at an open glade of the forest a kind of amphitheatre crossed
+by a road to some southern town.
+
+A wrecked coach stood at the junction, and all about it were the signs
+of a bloody combat.
+
+I had been riding before the others at this particular moment, and my
+horse nearly stumbled over the body of an elderly man who had been shot
+in the head and his brains blown out.  Near by lay his coachman,
+stabbed in many places and quite dead.  Of the horses of the coach
+there was not a trace, and it was now plain to me that the treasure had
+come from it, and that this elderly man had been escaping southward
+when the robbers overtook him.  Naturally I turned to the girl and
+began to question her angrily.  She merely shook her head and shut her
+eyes, as though afraid to look upon the corpse.  It was to say that she
+had had no hand in that bloody affair, and so much I could readily
+believe.
+
+"Good heavens!" said I to Leon, "what an infamy, and more than that,
+what a mystery!"
+
+He did not agree with me at all.  A ready instinct told him what had
+happened.
+
+"The carriage stuck in the sand yonder," said he.  "The servants went
+for horses to a neighbouring farm.  This girl here may have been with
+them as a servant or she may not.  The fellow who murdered them was the
+one we found with her in the wood.  It is as simple as an open book, my
+dear uncle."
+
+"Then," said I, "we will write the end of the story.  Of course we must
+wait until the others return."
+
+"What?" cried he; "with the night coming down and the Cossacks in the
+woods!  That would be madness indeed, my uncle."
+
+And then he added with a laugh, "The old gentleman is in heaven and is
+in no need of diamonds.  We shall know very well what to do with them
+when we get in Paris.  Let us make haste before we are discovered."
+
+He did not wait for me to reply, but holding the girl close to him on
+the saddle he trotted on through the wood, and I followed him
+reluctantly.
+
+We were as rich as Croesus, yet how we were going to get out of the
+forest, where we should find the army, or what chance we had of
+carrying our treasure to Paris, I knew no more than the dead.
+
+
+IV
+
+The way now lay through a wide avenue--one of the most beautiful I had
+seen in Russia.  The grass lay smooth and green, and bore no trace of
+the relentless summer.  We might have been in the precincts of some
+princely chateau, and we were not at all surprised presently when we
+came upon a considerable building which had all the air of one of those
+picturesque monasteries in which Russia abounds.  Had we any doubt of
+this, a great gilt dome with a Greek cross high above it would have
+settled it; for never have I seen a more beautiful object than this
+golden ball glistening amid the woods as though its heart were of fire,
+while a celestial radiance shone all about it.  To Leon, however, it
+merely stood for a place whereat we might get food and drink.
+
+"These monks are very decent fellows," he said; "they know how to
+entertain strangers.  The regiment will bivouac not far from here, and
+we may just as well stay the night in yonder building as sleep in a
+mouldy barn.  Cheer up, uncle, and think of the good wine you are about
+to drink.  It's the luckiest thing that could have happened to us."
+
+I looked at the girl in his arms and wondered if he spoke truly.
+
+We were now within a quarter of a mile of the building and could see a
+portcullis and a gate from which men on horseback were riding out.
+When they approached nearer it was plain that they were the servants of
+the dead man whose body lay in the woods behind us; and observing this
+we drew aside behind the trees to let them pass.  It was evident that
+they had told the story of their trouble to the good monks in yonder
+building; and some of the latter, clad in brown habits with white cords
+about their waists, were going down to their assistance.
+
+I noticed that the servants were five in number and were all heavily
+armed.  Obviously they must have been men of little sense to have left
+their master alone with a bandit in such a place and so to have
+contributed to his death.  The same idea occurred to Leon, who did not
+fail to point out to me the nature of the peril from which he had saved
+the girl, who now lay trembling in his arms.
+
+"They would have cut her to pieces if we had not come up," said he.
+"We are doing a work of mercy, mon oncle, in saving her from them.  Let
+us get on to the monastery and tell our own story.  Of course we know
+nothing of any carriage or its owners; we are just officers of the
+Grand Army, and if we are not treated properly our comrades will see to
+it.  I count it very fortunate that things have turned out so.  We
+shall get an excellent dinner and a good night's rest, and to-morrow we
+shall be with the regiment again.  Could anything be better?"
+
+He seemed well pleased enough, and I did not know what answer to make
+to him.  As for the Eastern woman, common sense said that he would send
+her about her business in the morning; but not until he had made sure
+that she could go in safety.  These things pertain to war, and it is
+not possible to disguise them.  Leon was just as fifty thousand others
+who marched at the Emperor's summons, neither better nor worse; and if
+there be any excuse to be made for him, it is that he had a sentiment
+towards the sex which was rarely lacking in nobility.
+
+"Let no man consider himself happy until he is dead," said I, imitating
+the philosopher; and with that I pressed on at his side until we came
+to the gate of the monastery, and nothing remained but to tell our
+story to the good monks within.  This was easier than might have
+seemed, for they had no word of our own tongue and we none of theirs.
+It was a matter of gesture from the beginning, and in this we excelled
+them without question.  But first let me speak of the building we now
+entered.
+
+The monastery covered some three acres of ground.  There were a few
+tilled fields about it and a considerable courtyard in the Eastern
+fashion.  The chapel was a rude imitation of the Church of St. Ivan at
+Moscow, and had a similar cross, though of smaller size, upon its
+gilded dome.
+
+The whole enclosure had been heavily walled about as a protection
+against any raiding bands of brigands; and there were even ancient
+cannon upon its battlement.  Although lacking a moat, there was a big
+pool or lake before its main gate, and this was spanned by a primitive
+bridge with a portcullis beyond it.  Here we found the keeper of the
+gate, a sturdy bearded monk, filthy in aspect if servile in manner.  He
+seemed not a little awed by our uniform and equipment, but when he
+caught sight of the girl on Leon's saddle, a broad grin animated his
+features and he no longer delayed to open.
+
+So we rode into a small courtyard and there tethered our horses.  The
+chapel lay to the south of this, and there came to us rude sounds of
+Gregorian chanting, which is the fashion in their Church, and very
+melodious when executed by the best singers.  Those who now recited the
+sacred office were not of such a class, and their barbarous voices
+suggested that we were in Araby rather than in civilised Europe.  This,
+however, did not concern us.  Our desire was for food and shelter, and
+following a monk into a vast refectory we signified our wants to him
+and commanded him to satisfy them.  In his turn he did not appear
+unwilling to oblige us, and motioning us to sit at the table, he went
+from the refectory and left us alone.
+
+Now I should tell you that the girl Zayde had entered this monastery
+with some reluctance, and in spite of Leon's endearments she seemed
+very ill at ease while we remained there.  Leon, on the other hand, had
+found his best spirit, and was in the mood for any adventure which
+might come to him.  Perhaps the church and the habit suggested the
+absurdity on which he now set his heart, for, turning to me suddenly,
+he said:
+
+"How now, my uncle, is not this the very place for a wedding?  What
+would you say if I told you that I was going to marry Zayde?  Is she
+not beautiful enough?  Look at her and tell me honestly what you think."
+
+I answered that he was making a fool of himself and bade him be silent.
+The girl half understood his meaning, I think, for the colour came and
+went from her pretty face, and she watched him with eyes that plainly
+acquiesced in any such determination.  None the less his words offended
+me, and I did not wish to hear them repeated.  Though these monks were
+not of my own religion, I respected them, and would not have profaned
+their holy building.  So much Leon must have learned from my looks, for
+he slapped me gaily upon the shoulder and said that I was not born to
+be a jester.
+
+"What is marriage, my uncle?" he asked.  "A few words gabbled by the
+priest, and neither the one nor the other caring a pin's point about
+them.  Why should I not marry Zayde?  She is young, and, I will wager,
+well born.  I am a bachelor and free to do what I please.  What is
+there to prevent my making her my wife if I choose?"
+
+I rejoined that he had said the same thing of Valerie St. Antoine, and
+at the mention of her name he flushed and became a little serious.
+
+"Valerie St. Antoine is dead," said he; "why do you remind me of her?"
+
+"Because in my hearing you swore to her to marry no other woman."
+
+"Oh, my dear uncle, how easily one imposes upon you!"  And at the same
+thought he burst out laughing, and catching the girl in his arms, he
+kissed her as though she were already much more to him than an
+acquaintance of the roadside.
+
+It was at this point that the monk returned to us, followed by many of
+his brethren.  They were all rugged men, bearded and of evil
+countenance, and I perceived in a moment that they recognised us for
+what we were--the enemies and the invaders of their country.  Not a
+sign of hospitality did we detect upon any one countenance in that
+formidable group.  They swarmed about us as though willing enough to do
+us a mischief if they dared, and so threatening became their manner
+that we both drew our swords, and Leon a pistol as well.
+
+This put a new complexion on the affair.  The most part of them now
+stood back a little, while their prior, a venerable man with a great
+gold cross on his breast, held out his hands as though in supplication
+and addressed us rapidly in the Russian tongue.  When he discovered
+that we could only answer him in monosyllables he made a gesture of
+despair, and turning to the keeper of the refectory, he gave him an
+order whose nature was soon apparent.  The fellow left the room, but
+returned anon with three flagons of their native wine and some vast
+loaves of black bread, which seems to be the only sort procurable in
+this God-forsaken country.  These viands were set upon the table and we
+were bidden to eat and drink, while the monks stood about and watched
+us very curiously.
+
+I have told you that all these faces were strangely alike, as is ever
+the case when men are old and bearded and of the same nationality.  One
+face, however, struck me as familiar.  It was that of a young monk who
+tried to hide himself amid his brethren, but when I would have verified
+my suspicions, he turned his back upon me and left the room without
+remark.  The others continued to force their meagre hospitalities upon
+us, offering the wine freely, but keeping it, I observed, from the girl
+at their side.  She, indeed, appeared to be _anathema maranatha_ to
+these holy men.  Perhaps it was the first time that a woman had ever
+sat to bread in their refectory; but however it may have been, it was
+grotesque to find them afraid so much as to touch the hem of her
+garment, and as curious about her as though she had been a wild animal
+in a menagerie.
+
+Their antics made Leon laugh incontinently, and his laughter was shared
+by the girl, though not as freely as might have been expected from such
+a lady.  To me it seemed that she had become aware suddenly of some
+peril in the place and was anxious to be gone from it.  I observed her
+pluck Leon by the arm and make an appeal to him of a kind I could but
+imagine.  When he told me in a whisper that she spoke French after all,
+needless to say I was very much astonished.
+
+"Very well," said I, "she will understand your love-making now."
+
+He agreed that it was so.
+
+"The priests will marry us after dinner," says he, "and we will take
+her to Smolensk.  What an adventure, my uncle!  Is not war the father
+of all adventures, as I have often told you?"
+
+I made some commonplace remark and tried to stay the hand of the monk,
+who was refilling my glass with very fiery spirit.  Truth to tell, this
+now mounted to my head, as it had mounted to Leon's already, and
+presently the scene before me became confused and unreal, while the
+walls were reeling before my eyes and the roof threatening to fall on
+my head.  I detest a drunkard, and this condition occurred to me as
+very shameful.  On the other hand, I had drunk but little of their wine
+and could not account for my condition; but when I called to the monks
+for water they proffered me a drink of another kind, and so potent was
+this that I lost consciousness almost immediately, and must have slept
+for many hours before I came to my senses again.
+
+
+V
+
+It must have been near midnight when this happened, and the moonlight,
+shining in the glade where I lay, soon showed me that I was alone.
+
+Oddly enough, the monks had carried me to the very place where the
+carriage had been robbed, and when I got the stiffness out of my limbs
+and the dizziness out of my head I perceived that this was as we had
+left it, and the scene unchanged, save that the dead had been carried
+away.  I knew the place to be but a quarter of a mile from the
+monastery, and wondered why they had carried me so far.  But chiefly I
+began to think of my nephew and the girl, and to speculate upon their
+fortunes.
+
+It was no light thing to be left there in the forest with the Cossacks
+all about and my regiment bivouacked God knows where, and a chance of
+being eaten by wolves into the bargain.  On the other hand, I had a
+great fear for Leon, and was almost ready to believe that they had
+killed him in the monastery.  Certainly such fellows would have done
+anything for the treasure, and very possibly Leon's head had been
+stronger than mine and he had contested its possession with them; in
+which case I did not doubt they had slain him, and the fact that I was
+alone seemed to warrant the supposition.
+
+Now this was troubling me, and I had a great fear both of the place and
+of the hour, when I heard a sound of voices in the glade, and presently
+made out the figures of horsemen moving amid the trees.
+
+At first I took them to be Cossacks, and was about to make off as best
+I could, when to my great surprise and pleasure I heard Leon himself
+calling to me.  Never was the sound of a voice more welcome.
+
+"Leon!" I cried, and running up to him I found myself surrounded by a
+squadron of the Red Hussars, in the midst of whom Leon himself was
+riding his own horse and leading mine by the bridle.
+
+"Well met, my uncle!" says he, in his boyish humour.  "And so they have
+not put the habit on you after all.  We have ridden three leagues in
+quest of you, and here you are at the very door.  Well, that is lucky,
+for time presses, and there is good work to do.  What do you say to a
+little fire to warm our hands on such a night?"
+
+I told him that it would be an excellent thing, though I had then no
+idea of his meaning.  His affection for me was very real, and while his
+speech made a jest of it, I could see how pleased he was that he had
+found me in the wood.
+
+"It was that cursed liquor of theirs," says he.  "I have never drunk
+its like.  We must have both dropped off like children in a cradle, and
+then they carried us out.  I woke up God knows where, and but for these
+good fellows I might still be in the same place.  Now we are going to
+teach the holy friars a lesson.  Do you realise that they have got the
+woman and her jewels, and we must burn them out to recover them?  Come
+along, my uncle.  Here is an adventure that is only just beginning."
+
+He seemed greatly pleased with himself, and rode jauntily enough, as
+though the event were greatly to his liking.  My own wit had grown a
+little clearer by this time, and I could acquiesce in his determination
+to have it out with the monks.  After all, they were not of our faith,
+and they had treated us very scurvily.  The girl was no business of
+theirs, and even if the treasure had been looted, they had neither part
+nor lot in the affair.  It was plainly our duty to teach them a lesson
+and to recover the property which the fortunes of war had bestowed upon
+us; and with this in our minds we rode up to the gate of the monastery
+and beat upon it insistently.
+
+"No more of their liquor for me," says Leon, as he snapped a pistol in
+the lock of the great gate and then pulled their bell furiously.  "We
+will give them a taste of our vintage and see if it goes to their
+heads.  If it doesn't, I fancy that a prick from the point of a sword
+may well go somewhere else.  Rest assured, dear uncle, we will have our
+pockets full of diamonds before the day breaks, and the girl upon my
+saddle-bow.  Let us see what kind of a chant these holy men like best.
+Upon my word, they sleep like dogs after a hunting!"
+
+Truly it was surprising that, after all the hullabaloo we had made, no
+one opened to us.  The great monastery showed no light of any kind
+whatever.  Both doors and windows were heavily barred as though against
+a ruthless invader, and listen as we might we could hear no sound
+within.  The subterfuge merely angered Leon.  He began to understand
+that even a squadron of hussars is powerless against a barrier of iron,
+and that for all we could do to the holy men within we might as well
+have been in Moscow.  This, as I say, had not occurred to him before,
+and he now rode round and round the precincts as though there must be
+some loophole in the vast wall which defied us, some gate which the
+carbines of the company could force.  We found none, and the men's
+chagrin was undisguised.  They had been promised food and loot if they
+took the place, and yet they were as far from taking it as any child
+would have been.
+
+"You will never do it," said I to Leon.  "The wolves have gone to
+ground, and nothing but fire will fetch them out.  You should have
+brought a gun, my boy; that would have made short work of them."
+
+He admitted it, and began to blame himself for his stupidity.  The
+artillery, according to his reckoning, was three leagues from the
+place; but presently one of the hussars remembered that some of Marshal
+Ney's guns were with the van of the rearguard and could not be farther
+than a league from the place.
+
+"We can have them here by dawn," said the fellow, and there being
+nothing else for it we dispatched half a dozen of them at full gallop
+to bring a field piece to the place.  The gunners, we said, would come
+readily enough when the story of the loot was told to them.  Never had
+I known one of the Grand Army turn from that, whatever the circumstance.
+
+So the men rode off and left us upon the edge of the lake which
+bordered the eastern wall of the monastery.
+
+Though the day had been warm enough, the night fell intolerably cold,
+and we wrapped ourselves in our cloaks, and having tethered the horses,
+fell to walking round the monastery as though it would yet reveal its
+secrets.  Impossible to believe that a treasure of half a million
+francs and one of the most beautiful women in Russia were locked up in
+that gloomy place, and we, Velites and hussars of the Grand Army,
+impotent to get one or the other.  Yet such was a fact and such the
+cunning of the monks that neither light was shown to us nor a footstep
+to be heard in all the hours of our vigil.
+
+Dawn had come before the hussars returned with half a battery from
+Ney's own rearguard.  We heard the sound of the horses in the wood, and
+anon the heavy wheels of the guns crunching over the gravel of the
+precincts.  Then also we heard for the first time a signal from the
+monastery, the great bell of which began to toll mournfully, as though
+holding a requiem for the dead.  The sound inspired us and brought
+every man to his feet.
+
+"The birds are caged after all," said I to Leon.  "We will now see how
+they can fly."
+
+
+VI
+
+The bridge across the lake was not stout enough to carry a gun; but we
+quickly had three upon the brink of the water, and at the third
+discharge we brought down the great door of wood and iron and not a
+little of the masonry with it.  Such a ragout of rusty iron and plaster
+saints did not disturb us at all; and running triumphantly across the
+bridge, we entered the monastery, swords drawn, to ferret out the monks.
+
+Let me tell you in a word that we found no human being within the
+place.  From room to room we ran, crying to each other in chapel and
+refectory and deserted cell, and hearing nothing but our own voices in
+reply.  Such a mystery was beyond any I had known.  The monks were
+here, we said, or else the devil himself had rung their bell.  Nay,
+there were traces of their recent occupation--rude beds just disturbed;
+a faint fire in a primitive kitchen; the very candles lighted before
+the icons or images in their chapel.  Yet not so much as the girdle of
+a monk in all the place, and as for the treasure, I do not believe the
+fiend himself could have found a sou.
+
+Well, there we were, some eighty men gathered in the morning light and
+looking as foolish as school lads surprised in an orchard.
+
+When our first rage had somewhat calmed, reason began to assert itself,
+and we said that there must be some passage beneath the lake by which
+the fathers had gone out.  This caused a new quest of a highly
+diverting kind, for now it was every ferret to find a hole, and never
+did men work more willingly.  To and fro they went like hounds in a
+thicket.  Panels they tried and traps in cellars they lifted.  Walls
+were pierced with our swords and doors were beat down, until the place
+looked as though it had stood the ravages of a siege.  Yet the mockery
+of it all was that we might as well have hunted diamonds in the Place
+de la Revolution at Paris.  Not a trace of any secret passage did we
+find, not a hole large enough to pass a dog; and when after hours of
+labour we came to the conclusion that the mystery was beyond us, a
+similar hunt in the woods yielded no more profit.  Scattering wide
+about the monastery in enlarging circles, we must have ridden twenty
+leagues a man before we gathered at sunset to remind each other that
+the Cossacks might trap us and that we must rejoin the army at all
+costs.  The graver peril guiding us, we rode off reluctantly, and soon
+the fateful monastery and even the woods about it were lost to our view.
+
+Night had fallen for the second time now, and we had entered a land of
+great spaces.  But more than that, we were traversing an enemy's
+country, and anon we espied a large body of Cossacks--three thousand as
+we judged--who plainly had observed us and immediately sat down to the
+pursuit.  This was a turn that we might have looked for, but, in our
+imprudence, had risked.  It was now each for himself and the devil take
+the laggards.  We should be sabred to a man if these assassins rode us
+down, and, with a cry of "En avant!" we set spurs to our jaded horses
+and rode wildly across the plain.  God alone could tell whether we
+should find the army or lose it.
+
+It was a race for life with night and the mystery of night all about us.
+
+How to tell you, of that memorable gallop I hardly know.  No race at
+Chantilly ever found horses so tired or riders at such a tension.  On
+we thundered, and on and on.  Now we would cry that we were saved;
+again that all was lost.  The dust enveloped us in clouds; the moon
+magnified the great plain we must cross to the woods beyond.  Let us
+gain them and we might find the army after all.  I had said as much
+when a figure pressed out of the hurly-burly and I knew it for that of
+a Cossack.  He slashed at me with a great scimitar, and slashed again.
+Then I heard a pistol shot, and seeing the fellow reeling in his
+saddle, I cut him through the skull to the very marrow.  He was but the
+first of twenty, and so we went riding and slashing and halloaing for a
+league or more until we had bested their leaders and were alone on the
+great plain once more.  Alas! how brief a respite!  We had thousands
+still to deal with, and they rode after us like devils.  No sailors
+lost upon a black and stormy sea went more blindly than we upon that
+fateful night.  The army had vanished; we believed no longer that we
+should find it.
+
+Meanwhile, there were always the green devils behind us.  I should give
+no true picture of this affair if I denied that there was another side
+to it.  Some of our men fell and were hacked to pieces where they lay.
+Others were overtaken and cut down by the ruthless swords of the
+Cossacks.  We could not lift a finger to save them--ten would have
+perished for one who fell had we done so.  Our one hope lay in the
+swiftness of our horses.  "En avant!" we cried, and again "En avant!"
+We must find the army or perish.  Ah, what a vain hope and how Fate
+played with us!  For my part I believed that all was over when I first
+saw the fire in the wood and heard my comrades cry out.  The Russians
+were then but a hundred paces from us--the light that we saw might be
+anything.  God knows, we raced for it--and to discover what?  A priest
+and a woman--Zayde and the shorn monk, who I never doubted was a
+Cossack all the time.
+
+There they were--hobnobbing by a fire of logs and greatly startled when
+they heard the sound of hoofs.  Immediately they ran off into the
+thicket, but not before we had recognised them--my nephew and I.  They
+were hardly gone when a louder cry arose from every Frenchman in the
+wood; for now, as the very light of heaven itself, the glow of a dozen
+bivouac fires burst upon our aching eyes, and with one voice we cried:
+"Vive l'Empereur!" and swore that the army should avenge us.
+
+
+VII
+
+War teaches us many lessons, but none more useful than that of its
+accidents.  You will have said already that we had found the army and
+that nothing remained but to ride up to the outposts and raise an alarm.
+
+Let me answer that nothing was farther from the truth.  We had neither
+found the army nor were any of our comrades there to avenge us.  When I
+told this story in the year 1813 in Paris I well remember the laughter
+it excited.  A squadron of hussars saved by a flight of monks!  Thus
+the newspapers referred to it, and such was the naked truth.  The monks
+saved us--the monks from the monastery we had sacked.
+
+Never have I forgotten that moment when this ridiculous turn first
+became apparent to us.  The Cossacks, I say, were at our heels, hope
+gone from us, all thought of the army abandoned, when we saw the
+bivouac fires and rode madly up to them.  "Vive l'Empereur!" was our
+cry.  Then we learned the truth.
+
+There were a hundred or more monks in the woods: they had kindled the
+fires which cheered us.  The Cossacks, perceiving the fires, and being
+deceived as we were, waited for no verification of a fact which seemed
+self-evident.  The French army lay encamped in that place--who else
+would be there in these days of war and of a mighty host upon the
+march?  Do you wonder that the mad devils stopped as though they heard
+already the roar of our guns, that they wheeled about and were gone as
+foxes whom the moon has discovered?  They would have been madmen to
+have done anything else.  The race had been run and we were the
+victors.  So at least they thought, and so did Fortune smile upon us in
+that fateful hour.
+
+Be sure we did not linger upon an accident so remarkable.  The monks
+appeared to have no fear of us when we rode by, and the most part of
+them lay sleeping.  We forbore to intrude upon their dreams; and going
+on at our leisure, we came up with the army at dawn and there recited
+the details of this amazing adventure.
+
+It remains but to say a word of the bell and the treasure.
+
+I have often discussed it with Leon, and we have come to the conclusion
+that there must have been monks left in the monastery after the main
+body had fled, and that they sounded the alarm upon the approach of the
+hussars.  Their situation when we sacked that dismal building must have
+been parlous indeed, and God alone knew where they hid from us.
+
+As for the treasure, I have since learned that it belonged to a certain
+Prince Karasin, a Tartar from beyond the Urals.  He had been murdered
+by his servants just as I had supposed, and the woman upon whom he had
+lavished the treasure must have been a witness of the wickedness.  Her
+subsequent fate I am unable to tell you, but my nephew Leon, with his
+accustomed gallantry, still swears that she was innocent, and, Valerie
+St. Antoine excepted, by far the most beautiful thing he ever
+discovered in that God-forsaken country.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+PHANTOM MUSIC
+
+I
+
+I never thought to see Valerie St. Antoine again after we had left
+Moscow; but here I was quite wrong, as you shall learn presently, and
+my next encounter with her was as strange an affair as any I remember
+during the war.
+
+You will remember that we had marched out of Moscow on the 19th day of
+October, in the year 1812; but it was the 29th of that month when the
+snow began to fall.
+
+Hitherto our journey had not been unpleasant and had filled us with few
+apprehensions.  It is true that the Russians were active, and there
+were not many villages to pillage, so that some murmurings were heard
+at an early date, and men complained bitterly of the lack of bread.
+But we were given to understand that all this would be set straight
+presently, and that we should find untouched supplies at Smolensk, the
+first big town between Moscow and the frontier.  Meanwhile, many
+carried a little store of provisions in their knapsacks, and the
+officers were generally well looked after despite the difficulties.  We
+found marching easy in the early days, and even when the rain fell, and
+the roads became heavy, the wagons were not seriously hampered.  All
+went light-heartedly, thinking of our beloved France and of the triumph
+we were to celebrate there.
+
+Then came the snow.  It began to fall on the evening of the 29th, as I
+have said, and, save that there was cold rain during the following
+week, we never saw the green ground again until we came to the valley
+of the Rhine.  Ah, the first of these terrible days--how well I
+remember it!
+
+Leon and I rode side by side, a great press of horsemen before us;
+behind us, in a seemingly unbroken line, the carts and wagons of the
+transport.  Upon either side were the hussars and the lancers, the
+_chasseurs a cheval_, the Guards from Portugal, the Italians, with
+Prince Eugene.  The Emperor himself was then half a day's march ahead
+of us, but we expected to come up with him at Slawkowo, and there to
+enjoy our well-earned rest.  We had frost, as you shall hear, but there
+is no pen that can tell you of what we suffered by the way.
+
+There had been black clouds rolling down from the northward all day,
+but the snow itself did not burst upon us until the hour of sunset.  It
+came heralded by a distant sound as of thunder upon a far horizon; but
+this was no thunder that we heard--only a north wind roaring across
+that interminable plain.
+
+Anon it came upon us with the fury of a southern tempest.  Flakes of
+snow almost as big as a man's hand tumbled out of that leaden sky, were
+caught by the howling wind, and scattered in a fine powder which cut
+like steel.  Soon everything was obliterated: the summer had finished
+before our eyes.  Where there had been green grass and verdant woods,
+and even wild flowers by the roadside, there was now nothing but a
+monstrous sea, with here and there the white woods standing up as so
+many mighty ships upon a frozen ocean.
+
+The army, marching hitherto in such good spirits, became but specks in
+this white wilderness.  Never had Frenchmen known such cold, and great
+was the terror with which it inspired them.  We saw cloaks flying and
+heads bent before the blast; we heard the curses of the transport men,
+the shrill complaints of cantinieres; but above all the ceaseless
+howling of the blast, as though the God of Russia cried a vengeance
+upon us, and this was the hour of it.
+
+All this was bad enough, but more was to follow when the Cossacks came
+like so many devils from the darkness.
+
+They wheeled about us, piping a shrill defiance and waving their lances
+ominously.  In our turn we were too sore stricken to attack them, and
+we rode like cravens, who submitted to fate without lifting a finger.
+Not until Marshal Ney himself came up with cannon did we drive the
+scarecrows off, and even then it was but a brief respite, for they were
+as swift as eagles and as elusive.  Many a good fellow had a Russian
+lance in him that night, and the snow-field for his bed.  It was a new
+page in the story of a triumph we had hoped to celebrate in Paris.
+
+For myself I felt the cold bitterly, and I do not doubt that Leon
+suffered no less.  We had heavy cloaks and we rode good horses; but the
+frost was beyond anything I have known or could imagine, and presently
+the trail of the army could be followed by the dead and dying it shed
+upon the march.
+
+Dreadful was it to see those poor fellows, and to know that we could
+not help them.  There they lay, some already white and still in the
+death sleep; others moaning for pain of the cold; others, again,
+imploring their fellows to shoot them for God's sake.  All, however,
+passed on without pity.  The wind devoured us; the snow had become a
+very avalanche.
+
+Now this lasted for an hour, almost until the darkness had set in; but
+when it ceased we perceived, to our astonishment, a considerable town
+upon the horizon, and this put new life into us.  Spurring our jaded
+horses, Leon and I galloped on, telling each other that we should
+certainly find bread and shelter in such a place, and that the rigour
+of the night could safely be defied there.  We had gone, I suppose,
+about a third of a mile in this way when we came without warning upon a
+wrecked carriage, and immediately drew rein at the unexpected discovery
+we made therein.
+
+
+II
+
+I have told you that Leon will rarely pass a pretty woman, whatever be
+her nationality, and when he drew rein at the sight of the wrecked
+carriage it was a woman's face which arrested him.
+
+"One moment, my uncle," says he; "you really are in a devil of a hurry."
+
+I drew rein with him and walked my horse up to the carriage.  It was
+plainly the equipage of a person of rank--a spacious berline, drawn by
+four horses, and a brilliant yellow in colour.  Of more import was the
+fact that the coachman sat dead and frozen upon the box, and that the
+horses had drawn the vehicle over the bank of the road, and there left
+it poised as a stick upon a conjurer's finger.  A minute later and it
+turned over gently in the snow, and the horses, maddened by the mishap,
+plunged frantically and went galloping across the plain.  At the same
+moment we heard cries from within the berline, and, dismounting and
+leaping upon it, we took three women from the coach, of whom but one
+was alive.  She was Valerie St. Antoine, and she recognised us
+immediately.
+
+"Help, sir, for God's sake!" says she, as Leon caught her in his arms
+and instantly wrapped his own cloak about her.  We did not tell her
+that the others were beyond help, yet such was the case.
+
+Of the two, one was an elderly and distinguished-looking woman with
+white hair, and the second as pretty a child of fifteen years of age as
+I had seen since I left Prussia.  Both had perished of want and cold.
+They were locked in each other's arms, and quite dead when we took them
+from the carriage.
+
+"Who are these poor people?" I asked Valerie.
+
+She buried her face in her hands.
+
+"The Baroness de Nivois and her granddaughter.  They have been five
+years in Moscow.  They were my friends--God help me!"
+
+"But, mademoiselle," said I, "what sent you upon such an errand as
+this?"
+
+She looked at me, I think, with some amazement at my want of
+understanding.
+
+"What Frenchwoman remains in Moscow now?" she asked coldly.  And then
+as quickly she turned to Leon and inquired of him where the Emperor
+would be.
+
+"I must see him immediately," says she; "it was for that I followed the
+army.  Captain Courcelles, will you not help me?"
+
+He replied that nothing would give him greater pleasure.
+
+"You are returning to Paris, mademoiselle?" he asked her.
+
+She said that it was possible.
+
+"But," cried I, "I thought you would never leave Moscow.  You told me
+so yourself."
+
+"Major," she rejoined, "I did not then know that my father was alive,
+nor that he served the Emperor."
+
+I thought upon it a minute, and then a sudden memory coming to me, I
+said:
+
+"There is a Colonel St. Antoine with the Second Battalion of the
+Chasseurs of the Line.  Is it possible, mademoiselle, that he is a
+relative of yours?"
+
+"He is my father," she said, with admirable dignity; and, turning, she
+hid her face in her hands again, as though the dreadful scene about us
+could no longer be suffered.  Leon waited for no more, but, lifting her
+upon his horse, he rode straightway from the place.
+
+"Do what you can for these poor women," said he to me.  "We will wait
+for you in the town."  And with that he pressed forward and was quickly
+lost to my view.
+
+I had given him my word, and yet it was worth little.  The poor women
+were beyond all hope, and it remained but to inter them decently.
+This, with the aid of some sappers, I did anon, and having seen to it
+that we should know the place again if occasion arose, I also pressed
+on towards the town.
+
+It was quite dark by this time, and the snow had begun to fall again.
+I thought myself lucky to overtake my nephew, which I did some third of
+a mile from the gates of the town.  But whether his welcome were as
+warm as my pleasure I have my doubts.  Let me say in all honesty that I
+believe that Leon was in love with this woman, and would have gone
+through fire and water for her.
+
+
+III
+
+There were many terrible nights to be suffered before the remnant of
+the Grand Army might see Paris again; but none of them to surpass that
+night when we first made acquaintance with the north wind as Russia
+knows it.
+
+What the cold was I cannot tell you, but such a rigour I had never
+known before, nor had any who marched with that stricken company.
+Already we perceived that if we did not reach the shelter of the town
+we should never see the day; and the fury of the wind driving us and
+the snow blinding our eyes, we pressed on headlong.
+
+Had a man doubted the road, the dead, as I have said, would have
+pointed it out to him.  There was not a furlong free from the corpses
+of those who had been our comrades.  Every bush sheltered poor wretches
+deploring their misery and appealing to God.  We saw men staggering as
+though drunk with wine; others hysterical as women and gone stark mad
+in their suffering.  And all the time the lights of the distant town
+would appear and disappear, as though mocking our hope and defying us
+of their promise.
+
+I was sorry for my nephew, who had given his cloak to Valerie; and
+although she made a pretence of sheltering them both, it was precious
+little good he got by it.  Perhaps, had she not been with him in the
+saddle, he would never have come to Slawkowo at all.  As it was, he
+bore up bravely and did not cease to encourage her in every way that he
+could.  "But a kilometre more, and we are there," he would say.  Or
+again: "We shall find the Emperor in the city, and there will be food
+and shelter there."  Sometimes he would ask her if she suffered much,
+and invariably she answered with a woman's courage.
+
+"Don't think of me, captain," she would say; "I am used to the cold.
+Have I not lived many years in Russia?  All this is nothing to me."
+
+Such courage was infectious, and we were both the better for it.  It
+seemed possible now that we should reach the town after all, though
+there were many bitter interludes before we did so.  Sometimes the
+lights would disappear altogether, and we would believe that we had
+lost our road.  Then again they would appear as mysteriously, and we
+would think the city but a stone's throw from us.  In the end, I
+remember, we came to a frozen river, and putting our horses across it,
+we found ourselves beneath high and forbidding walls, which told us
+that we had lost our way, and that the night might still have the
+better of us.
+
+This was a terrible hour, and we rode vainly to and fro as children who
+are lost in an unknown country.  Everywhere black walls denied us
+shelter, and so at last we recrossed the river and went southward a
+full half-hour before we discovered the gate of Slawkowo and cried to
+one another that all was well.
+
+We thought it must be so.
+
+Here was a considerable town with the houses of the merchants who had
+sheltered us when we rode to Moscow.  We had known some pleasant days
+in Slawkowo on our outward journey, and I do not think it dawned upon
+any man that our reception would be different upon our return.  Hardly
+had we entered the gate when we discovered our mistake.  Of the once
+fine houses but the shell now remained.  The main street was impassable
+by reason of guns and wagons gathered there.  We turned aside to the
+suburb on the south, and found such houses as remained alive with our
+comrades, who filled them from garret to cellar, and swore that no
+new-comer should enter.
+
+By here and there whole companies of infantry were bivouacked in the
+open for lack of shelter, and the high wall of church or garden alone
+protected them from the terrible night.  Of food there seemed no
+prospect whatever.  We beat upon the doors of many houses, and although
+we gave those within to understand that we were officers of the Guard,
+they answered that men or devils should not come in that night.  At
+last we found ourselves at the very ramparts again with never a house
+in view and nothing but those monstrous walls before us.
+
+"Good God!" says Leon, drawing rein at last and turning to me wearily,
+"is there no house in all this cursed city which will take us in?"
+
+I could but answer him that we must wheel about and try again, and
+although my horse staggered at every step, and ultimately fell dead as
+we went, I could but repeat the admonition.  We must get into a house
+of some sort, or we should never see the dawn.  So much would have been
+evident to a child.
+
+Behold us, then, staggering on, the snow beating upon us pitilessly;
+the wind howling amid the shells of the ruined houses; the city itself
+but a mob of maddened troopers fighting for their very lives on every
+threshold.  So evident was it that we should get no shelter anywhere in
+the vicinity of the gates that we pushed on ultimately as though we
+would leave Slawkowo by the western road, and then for the first time
+we were able to breathe freely and to reckon with the situation.
+
+There were no houses at all here--merely the blackened ruins of once
+fine streets.  Often we rode over heaps of rubbish with the sure
+knowledge that a mishap might send us headlong into some vault or
+cellar, already, it may be, full of dead.  This, however, did not deter
+us; we had Valerie to save, and the same thought inspired us both.
+There could be no rest for either until Valerie St. Antoine had found a
+refuge.  How shall I tell you what we ourselves suffered, buffeted this
+way and that; drawn now to some phantom house; anon to the borders of
+the frozen river, and from that back again to the wilderness?
+Certainly I thought that all was ended, and the deadly spell of the
+cold seizing upon me, I began to have that desire of sleep from which
+there can be no awakening.
+
+"Nephew," said I, "do you go on and leave me here."
+
+It was then that my horse fell, and rolling heavily in the snow I
+thought that my end had come.  Leon, however, had a flask of brandy in
+his haversack, and presently I was conscious of a burning sensation in
+my throat and of a sudden realisation of the truth that I must wake or
+die.  Making a mighty effort of the will, I got upon my feet and
+struggled on, hardly knowing that Valerie St. Antoine had one of my
+arms and Leon the other.  The words they spoke to me were as sounds
+from afar; I did not rightly understand them, and made no reply.  But
+presently, a little strength coming back to me, I heard a note of
+distant music, and asked them what it was.
+
+"Listen to that," said I.  "Someone is playing the organ."
+
+They laughed at me, Leon saying, "Come, come, uncle, your ears are
+playing tricks with you; there is no organ here."
+
+"You are wrong," said I; "there is an organ, and someone is playing 'On
+va leur percer les flancs.'  Listen and you will heal it."
+
+Well, they both stood and listened, and after a few moments they
+admitted I was right.
+
+"There is someone playing," said Leon, while Valerie uttered a little
+cry of pleasure, and running forward with her hands clasped, she
+returned to tell us that it must be the organ of a church and that we
+should never hear it on such a night if it were not very near to us.
+On this we all agreed, and a new hope animating us, we led Leon's horse
+and pressed on towards the music.
+
+Ah, what a quest that was!  How those phantom chords deceived us!
+Sometimes we would think the organ was so near us that nothing but a
+miracle could hide the scene.  Then again we would lose the sounds
+altogether, and try to comfort each other with the assurance that the
+wind alone muffled them.  This went on for a full half-hour, until as
+though a miracle had happened, we found ourselves in the very porch of
+a considerable church, and understood in a moment that our own fellows
+were within, and that one of them was playing upon the organ.
+
+"Open to the Guard!" cried Leon, beating heavily upon the door with the
+hilt of his sword.
+
+The answer from within was the one we had heard so often that night:
+"Let the Guard go elsewhere, there is no room for anybody here."
+
+"Oh," says Leon, "is that not Sergeant Bourgogne who is speaking?"
+
+It was a lucky shot, for the door was opened instantly, and there stood
+our old sergeant before us.
+
+"Why, captain," cried he, "we have reported you for dead!"  And then
+espying me, he added, "The very man we are looking for, major.  There
+is plenty of work for a surgeon to do in this place.  Come in,
+messieurs, and let me bolt the door after you."
+
+Needless to say, we did not ask for a second invitation, but passing at
+once into the church, we heard the sergeant bolting and locking the
+heavy door.  There the light almost blinded us, and we sank exhausted
+upon the stone pavement and lay motionless for many minutes.
+
+
+IV
+
+When we had recovered ourselves a little we were able to get some idea
+of the strange happenings within the church.
+
+To begin with, I would tell you that it was a building in the Russian
+fashion, with two domes above its naves and a similar one above the
+chancel.  About the wall there were the icons which the Russians
+worship, and the organ which we had heard played stood in the western
+gallery just above the main doors.  The building was large, and would
+have accommodated a thousand people perhaps.  There must have been five
+hundred of our own fellows within when we entered, and they lay about
+the marble pavement in every conceivable attitude.
+
+Some, I perceived, were already drunk with brandy, of which there was a
+considerable supply in the church.  I learned from Sergeant Bourgogne
+that the cellars of a neighbouring wine shop had been ransacked before
+dark fell and many bottles of wine and brandy carried into the church
+against the bitter night; of food there was none but horseflesh, and
+despite my nephew's protests, the troopers killed and cut up his own
+charger directly we entered the building.  Soon the whole place was
+redolent with the smell of roasted flesh, and what with the pungent
+odour of that and of the burning wood and brandy the atmosphere became
+almost insupportable.
+
+I should tell you that two great fires had been lighted in the
+building: one upon the pavement of the chancel, the other below the
+choir screen, which is a great thing in all their churches.
+
+Unhappily the fire before the altar had been fed chiefly by the
+beautiful painted panels of this screen, while that in the nave owed
+its glowing heat to the multitude of chairs which had been broken up
+and burned upon it.  Here all the cooking was done, and it was an odd
+thing to see men toasting great lumps of horseflesh upon the points of
+their bayonets and swords, and eating them while they were still hot
+and dripping from the fire.  Such practices, however, went on
+uninterruptedly; and if anything be said against them, I would remind
+you of the intolerable night outside and of what these poor fellows had
+suffered during their march to Slawkowo.  For that matter we ourselves
+were not above sharing in this barbarous hospitality, and even Valerie
+St. Antoine ate a piece of roasted horseflesh and drank a draught of
+wine from the flask which Sergeant Bourgogne proffered her.
+
+Be it said that the men were very merry and that a spirit of drunken
+hilarity prevailed in the place.  None seemed to remember that it was a
+holy building, nor would it have been worth while to remonstrate with
+poor devils who had suffered so much.  I saw usually sober officers
+dancing in the vestments of the priests and preaching mock sermons from
+a splendid pulpit.  The organist was an accomplished fellow, and played
+the wildest dance with precision.  Even the wounded cheered up at his
+music and tried to join in the songs which the army knew so well.  It
+was pitiful to hear them moaning:
+
+  "Ram, ram, ram, tam,
+  Plan, tire-lire ram plan":
+
+those who would never see France again and might never quit that
+building.
+
+One such I shall never forget.  His leg had been amputated that very
+day, and yet in his drunken frenzy he reared himself up from the rude
+bed they had made him and rolled over and over until he was dead, like
+a mad dervish from the Indies.  Scenes like this were repeated during
+that long and wonderful night, until, indeed, the organist, coming down
+the stairs for brandy, stumbled by the way and pitched headlong into
+the nave.  Both his legs were broken, and although I did what I could
+for him, I knew that he, too, would never leave Slawkowo.
+
+Valerie St. Antoine supported all this with wonderful fortitude.  We
+had had little converse with her hitherto, but now she began to talk to
+us very rationally, and we had some insight into that dual personality
+which many men have found so interesting.
+
+Very frankly she told us that she had had no thought of returning to
+France until she had heard that her father was with the army.  This was
+the more surprising since it would appear that she had not seen him
+since she was quite a child.
+
+"He left Nice in the days of the Terror," she said.  "We went--my
+brother and I--with my mother to Leipsic, and then to one of her
+kinsmen, who was a Pole.  She died in Poland five years ago, and my
+brother had to enter Prince Nicholas's household and to take me to
+Moscow with him.  You will imagine what happened to a child among a
+strange people and with none but an absent brother to protect her.
+Rene was sent to St. Petersburg, and I was left alone with the Prince.
+Sometimes I forgot altogether that I had been born in France.  They
+surrounded me with riches, and anything for which I chose to ask was at
+my hand.  Then came the story of General Bonaparte and of his
+victories.  That did not interest me; I was still a Russian at heart,
+and remained so until your army entered Moscow and all was remembered.
+It was the Emperor who set me dreaming again and made me remember my
+home by the Mediterranean Sea: I recalled my father in his uniform of
+green and gold; I recollected how we were taught as children to cry,
+'_Vive la Republique!_' but never '_Vive le Roi!_'  Oh, yes, my heart
+went back to France and I became a Frenchwoman again.  Now I shall go
+to Paris and try to earn my living there.  It will be difficult, but I
+am not afraid; the world has taught me too many things that I should
+fear my own independence."
+
+Leon told her gallantly enough that she had no need to fear any such
+thing.  He, I made sure, was ready enough to set her upon the road of
+his choice; and yet there was something about the girl which forbade
+love-making as soldiers know it, and set her upon a pinnacle of which
+even my nephew was a little shy.
+
+"Come to Paris," said he, "and you shall be as famous as any woman in
+the city.  There is always a career for beauty there, and you, Valerie,
+have other gifts.  I promise you that you will not be disappointed.  I
+will make it my business to see that you are not."
+
+She looked at him with curiosity.  Perhaps there was a measure of pity
+in her tone when she said, "Ah, Captain Leon, if we ever see Paris
+again how lucky we shall be!"
+
+This she said from her heart, and it saddened us all not a little when
+we perceived how true it was.  None the less, Leon tried to laugh at it.
+
+"There will be supplies at Smolensk," said he, "and after that the way
+will be easy.  We shall be hungry for a day or two and perhaps eat some
+of your old friends the Cossacks--but the Grand Army has a good
+appetite.  The Emperor will not have been unprepared for such weather
+as this, and you will see how he will deal with it.  Really,
+Mademoiselle Valerie, you were never born to be a pessimist."
+
+She shook her head, but her interest was evidently roused when he
+mentioned the Emperor.
+
+"Where is His Majesty now?" she asked.  "Do you not remember that I
+must see him at once?  It is for that that I left Moscow with the
+Baroness Nivois.  The safety of the army may depend upon what I have to
+tell him.  I appeal to you all to help me."
+
+"We shall do that readily enough," said I, chiming in for the first
+time.  "Nothing could be easier.  His Majesty is at Slawkowo this very
+night.  You can see him in the morning before the march begins--that
+is, if you have anything to say to him to which he will listen."
+
+She smiled as though with some contempt at the doubt.
+
+"I have that," said she, "which will save his army.  If he does not see
+me, he is not the person I believe him to be."
+
+And then to us all she said:
+
+"Messieurs, I have the plans of General Kutusoff, as I read them in
+Prince Nicholas's house.  Do you not think your Emperor will wish to
+see those?"
+
+We were all greatly interested, and begged her to show us the
+documents.  Here, however, she was adamantine, and her native secrecy
+prevailed.  To our questions she answered that she would tell the
+Emperor alone, and soon we perceived that it was futile to press her.
+Indeed, had we the mind, that was not the opportunity, for just as we
+were at the height of the argument a loud knocking was heard upon the
+doors of the church, and someone cried out that the Cossacks were
+without.
+
+Now this was a dreadful thing to hear, and one which sent every man in
+the church leaping to his feet--those of them who could stand, for
+there were many who could not.  We did not stop to ask ourselves by
+what means the Russians had entered Slawkowo.  Well we knew that they
+had been upon our flanks all day, and it did not seem impossible that
+they had made a sudden descent upon the church, and were already in the
+suburbs of the city.  If that were so, our case was parlous.  We knew
+that they would burn us out like rats, and would sabre every man who
+crossed the threshold.  Can you wonder, then, that a great silence fell
+for an instant, and was succeeded by a wild shout of "Aux armes!"
+
+I have lived through many a dangerous hour for the Emperor's sake, but
+never one, I think, so full of the sublime and the grotesque as that
+instant of alarm in the church at Slawkowo.
+
+To see men, who had been brawling and singing but a moment before,
+spring to their feet and stagger towards the door, bayonets fixed or
+swords flourished; to hear the oaths and curses of drunken brutes, who
+believed that death had them by the shoulders; to be carried everywhere
+in a mob which slashed and hewed at an imaginary enemy, and even cut
+down its comrades in a mad debauch of fear and frenzy--all this, I say,
+surpassed experience.
+
+Yet such was the result of that wild alarm.
+
+The Cossacks were at the gates; the church was fired.  From without and
+within the roar and the brawl waxed deafening.  Those in the snow beat
+fiercely upon the doors, and splintered them with axe and musket; those
+within fired their pistols from every window, and called on God and the
+devil to help them.  When it was apparent that the doors were giving
+way, a panic ensued such as the meanest mercenary might have been
+ashamed of.  Men howled in fear or supplicated an enemy still
+invisible; others flew to the bottle, and drank prodigious draughts;
+some capered like women round and round the fires in a drunken paean of
+death.  But all surely believed that the Cossacks were there; and we of
+the Guard, determining at length that assault was better than defence,
+threw the doors wide open and charged headlong through the blinding
+storm.
+
+Ah! what a night that was--what a mockery!  Perceived but not seeing,
+for the aureole of light must have shown our figures clearly to the
+enemy, we slashed and hewed at hazard--here in snow to our knees, there
+falling upon the slippery ground, now locked arm in arm with the
+aggressors, or again standing alone seeking vainly for an enemy.
+
+Whence the assault had come or by whom we knew no more than the dead.
+
+Either the light blinded us or we stood in such black darkness that a
+man might have slain his own brother unawares.
+
+In truth, we had been doing this all along, and we must have fought a
+full ten minutes before someone cried out that we were killing
+Frenchmen, and instantly there arose a terrible uproar and the ghastly
+truth was discovered.
+
+It had not been the Cossacks at all who had come to the place, but a
+regiment of chasseurs of the line, of whom no fewer than forty now lay
+dead before the porch of the church.  Who can describe our chagrin and
+dismay when this was made known?  Our own comrades!  Many a man there
+would as soon have slain his own children.
+
+
+V
+
+Well, we dragged brands from the fire and began to do what we could.
+Many of the poor fellows were dead, and the snow fell so heavily that
+their bodies were already but whitened mounds.  Others crawled here and
+there in their pain, fearing the vengeance of the Russians whom they
+believed to be in the church.  When we cried out to them that we were
+Frenchmen, they could hardly believe their ears.  How they reproached
+us then, and how difficult we found it to answer them!  Few words,
+indeed, were spoken; but, dragging the wounded and even the dead into
+the building, we began our pitiful task.
+
+Naturally, my own services were much in request.  There was another
+surgeon from the Velites of the company, but he was a very young man,
+and the situation had unnerved him.  The mischief of it was that so
+many had been attacked with sword and bayonet that the wounds we had to
+deal with were very terrible.  One poor fellow I remember
+particularly--a fine man of more than middle age in a cloak and
+colonel's uniform, an officer of the _chasseurs a pied_, who tried to
+make light of his wounds, but evidently was dying.  Someone told me
+presently that his name was St. Antoine, and it came to me in a flash
+that he might be Valerie's father.
+
+Now, it became very difficult to know what to do.  The girl herself was
+then helping the wounded upon the far side of the church, but she came
+over to me presently, and I had no alternative but to tell her what had
+been said.  The man was dying, and, if he were her father, then she
+must know it.
+
+I shall not attempt to recite the moving scene I was now to witness--a
+scene between a child who had become the woman of the world and a man
+who had lost his daughter to find her at the hour of his death!  Be
+sure we did what we could for him, giving him the best place by the
+fire, and cloaks from willing shoulders, and brandy from the flask
+which was left to us.  It was all of no avail, and he died just as the
+dawn broke and the distant bugles were sounding the reveille.
+
+Valerie's grief was not such as I had expected to see.
+
+There are some women, however, whose souls no man can read, and hers
+was such a one.  What she suffered in that hour I make no pretence to
+say, but her anger against those who had killed their fellow-countrymen
+was typical of a passionate nature.  This Grand Army now stood to her
+for a thing of contempt.  She railed upon us piteously--applauding our
+skill in killing Frenchmen and running away from Russians.  When, to
+turn her thoughts, Leon told her that she would now find the Emperor in
+Slawkowo, she derided the idea that she wished to see him, and taking
+some papers from her breast she burned them before we could raise a
+finger to stop her.
+
+"Your army shall perish!" she cried almost triumphantly; and then she
+asked, "Well, what does it deserve?  To kill your comrades!  My God--to
+kill my own father!"
+
+Her courage was no longer capable of supporting this thought, and she
+sank down upon the pavement and was overtaken by passionate weeping,
+which endured for many minutes.
+
+The destruction of the documents had been so swift that its moment
+hitherto had not occurred to us, but now I took Leon aside and began to
+question him.
+
+"The papers came from Kutusoff," said I.  "They are of the greatest
+importance, and possibly the Russian plan of campaign is among them.
+Certainly the Emperor should know of this; we must make it our business
+to go to him immediately.  If the woman has burned the documents, at
+least she will have read them.  We must make her speak at
+head-quarters."
+
+He agreed with me, but declared that she was in no fit state to tell a
+story.
+
+"I know the kind," he said.  "Her anger is like a tempest, and will
+pass as quickly.  Then she will regret what she has done.  Let us go to
+head-quarters and report.  It will be for them to act in the matter."
+
+I thought this wise at the time, and did not hesitate to set off with
+him.  It was evident that the Russians had prepared some great plan of
+campaign the moment our retreat was known, and the importance of this
+to the general staff could not be exaggerated.  It was amazing to think
+that a mere child amidst us had knowledge which might save the lives of
+thousands of men, and that the papers which contained it were but so
+many ashes upon the pavement before us.  None the less, we might yet
+compel her to speak, and with this in our minds we quitted the building
+and made our way as best we could to the guest house at which the
+Emperor was staying.
+
+This was no light task, for the snow was often up to our knees, and the
+dead were everywhere.
+
+It had been a terrible night, and the army had paid a bitter price for
+the ruin it had inflicted upon Slawkowo on the outward journey.  We
+could not help but reflect how many thousands might have been saved in
+those houses we had burned, how many might have been fed by that food
+we had so wantonly destroyed in the days of our abundance.  This day
+there was not a loaf of bread in all that perished town; men were
+eating horse at every bivouac.  The night, for those who lived, had
+been an orgy amid the cellars, when men raved and died in their
+drunkenness, and those who perished from starvation had nothing but
+brandy for their lips.
+
+All this was reflected in that scene at dawn.
+
+Day broke with a wan, grey light and a powder of snow which burned the
+skin like hot needles.  We found the great street of the town still
+blocked by the wagons of the transport and the guns of the Emperor's
+Guard.  The bravest men moved like phantoms in the mist, their spirits
+sunk, their flesh shrunken by the cold.  None of the eclat of departure
+was to be observed in all that throng.  The road had carried us to a
+house of death, and no hope lay beyond it.  Who shall wonder at the
+dejection which fell upon the once proud Grand Army?
+
+We came up to the Emperor's tent at nine o'clock, and heard that His
+Majesty was just about to march.  Murat and Dumesnil were with him, and
+I was lucky enough to catch the latter when he came out of the
+Emperor's room some ten minutes later.  My story interested him
+profoundly, and we were soon ushered into His Majesty's presence.  I
+thought he looked a little careworn, but there was no betrayal of his
+secret thoughts, nor did he speak a word in reference to the thousands
+of dead who lay buried beneath the snow in that wretched town.  Indeed,
+his manner became almost a little aggressive when he spoke and asked me
+somewhat surlily what I wanted.
+
+"Your Majesty," said I, "there is a woman in the city who has news from
+the Russian head-quarters.  I thought you would wish to hear of her."
+
+"Is she with you?" he asked quickly, the wonderful eyes searching me
+from head to foot.
+
+I had to say that she was not, and at that his choler mounted.
+
+"Then why do you come here?  Why do you waste my time?  Go and fetch
+her immediately.  You must be a fool to come upon such an errand."
+
+I had been an old favourite of his, and it came to me that he would not
+have spoken in this way had the situation been less terrible.  His
+anger reflected his disappointment and would not suffer argument.  I
+did not attempt to tell him the true story of Valerie St. Antoine, for
+to that he would never have listened in such a temper; but, promising
+to fetch her immediately, I was about to leave the room, when he said:
+
+"Let there be no mistake.  If you do not find her I will have you shot."
+
+I heard him with amazement, for never had such words been spoken to me
+before.  Yet I knew the Little Corporal well enough not to doubt his
+meaning.  He had realised the importance of the tidings I carried, and
+his anger at our supposed neglect prompted the threat.  If this did not
+alarm me it was because I trusted Valerie, and so well did my
+confidence seem to be justified that Leon laughed when he heard the
+story.
+
+"I know women," said he.  "She would do anything for me.  We will just
+tell her all the circumstances, and she will come immediately.  Cheer
+up, mon oncle; I shall not have to dig a bullet out of you at dawn
+to-morrow."
+
+Truthfully, I did not believe that he would, but I was a little anxious
+none the less, and we returned to the church at our best speed.  When
+we got there we found the building empty of all save its wounded and
+its dead.  Of Valerie there was not a trace, nor of the colonel, her
+father.  For a little while I could not realise the importance of this
+nor understand wholly what it meant to me.  When the truth came it was
+as though a man had clapped a pistol to my head and cried that I must
+die.  Good God, what would my case be if we could not find her?  Even
+Leon was moved; I could see that he had begun to tremble.
+
+
+VI
+
+"Mon oncle," said he, "she cannot be gone far; let us get some of our
+men and search for her.  Valerie will never leave the army at such a
+time.  We must find her without delay."
+
+I perceived that it was the only thing to be done, and, going out of
+the church with him, we began our search, which was to end so
+disastrously.
+
+There was no street, house, nor cellar within a quarter of a mile of
+the place that we did not ransack to its depths.  I have always been
+liked by the Guard, and many a good fellow proffered his help in such
+an emergency.  Soon, I think, there must have been fifty of us crying
+the tidings far and wide and asking, "Have you seen the Frenchwoman
+named St. Antoine?"  The astonishing thing was that we did not meet a
+human being who could help us by a word.  None had seen Valerie; few
+thought that they would recognise her if they did see her.
+
+"Possibly," said one, "she has gone to the guest house in the main
+street of the town."  Another suggested that she might have set out
+with the advance guard which left just after dawn.  But all agreed that
+she was not to be found, and when noon came and there were still no
+tidings of her, then I began to believe that she would never be found
+at all.  This was a disaster so unlooked for, so terrible, that it
+paralysed every faculty I possessed.  To die for a woman's temper, I
+said, while even my friends began to admit that I was in grave danger.
+When I met an aide-de-camp to General Dumesnil a little later in the
+afternoon, he told me that His Majesty was still waiting, but that his
+anger had not modified.
+
+"By heaven," said he, "he will have you shot, major, if you do not find
+her."
+
+I could only answer that I had done my best and was still doing it.  It
+occurred to me that, after all, Valerie might return to the church
+eventually, and, telling every man I knew that I was going there, I
+sought out that now deserted building, and made myself its prisoner.
+What hours they were--what hours of waiting, of hope, and of fear!
+From the distance I could hear the rumble of the guns and the murmur of
+a great army moving, but the church itself was as silent as the dead
+and filled with the ghosts of yesterday.  In the end the night came and
+found me still watching.  I did not dare to return to head-quarters.
+Even Leon did not come back to me.
+
+Well, a man dies but once, they say, and yet I died many deaths that
+night.
+
+Often I rebuked myself that Leon was one of the few to whom I had not
+committed my intention of returning to the church, and a little after
+ten o'clock I set out to seek for him.  This walk took me back to the
+main street of the town, and eventually to the very building wherein I
+had seen His Majesty that morning.  Such a fact, if it is to be
+explained at all, must be set down to the magnetism of fate, which
+destroys men as well as animals.  The rabbit, they say, is fascinated
+by the snake, and so was I by that intolerable uncertainty which I
+could not support in the stillness of the church.  I must know the
+truth, I thought: I must see the Emperor again, if I were ordered out
+for execution there and then--well, a more terrible death might await
+me on the frozen plain beyond the town.  "Have done with it," was my
+idea, as I pushed my way up the steps and asked if His Majesty was
+still there.
+
+Well, it was a fearful ordeal.  A young officer carried in my message
+and bade me wait at the door until he returned.  It mattered not where
+it was.  I do not think I was conscious of the time, the place, or of
+anything but the issue.  Should I be summoned to that magic presence or
+should I not?  Would the penalty be death?  Few know what a man suffers
+who lives through such moments as these; few can understand the sudden
+reaction which attends the truth, whatever it be.
+
+"His Majesty left at one o'clock," said the orderly when he returned.
+
+The truth staggered me, and I reeled as at a blow.
+
+"Did His Majesty leave alone?" I asked.
+
+"No," said the fellow, and here he smiled; "there was a woman with him."
+
+Pah, my friends, what a coward I had been, and how I cursed the weary
+hours I had spent alone in that hole of a church!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE CAMP BY THE RIVER
+
+I
+
+There were two days of cold, clear weather after we left Slawkowo.  It
+was upon the second of these days that the adventure of which I shall
+now speak befell me.
+
+The sufferings which the army endured had not by any means abated at
+this time.  We found but scant supplies in the town, and there had not
+been that distribution of rations we had expected.  It is true that the
+first-comers pillaged brandy from the cellars of Slawkowo, but this was
+poor sustenance for men whose greatest necessity was bread, and in this
+respect we quitted the town as poor as we entered it.  Our one
+consolation was that the north winds no longer nipped us and the snow
+had ceased to fall.  Just as heretofore, men devoured the horses that
+fell by the way and drank their blood greedily.  Nay, we were in no way
+surprised when we heard that the Croats were devouring each other, and
+the cruel tales of our comrades' sufferings which were told at every
+bivouac could readily be believed.  Naturally, only the bravest kept
+their courage through such an ordeal.  The cunning we had with us, and
+they went stoutly enough because of their cunning.  There will always
+be men who are able to get food while others starve, and in such the
+Grand Army was not deficient.  These happy fellows kept their secrets
+for the most part, and would often pretend to take pot-luck with us,
+while we knew all the time that they had hidden stores in which we did
+not share.  The fact led to bitterness sometimes, and such men were
+shunned by their fellows as unworthy of the spirit of comradeship which
+animated the Guard.
+
+I met more than one of these cormorants after we left Slawkowo, but
+none whose conduct so much mystified me as that of Captain Payard of
+the dragoons.  In converse he was the best of good fellows--a merry,
+curly-haired gentleman, whose eyes were as blue as a woman's and whose
+smile was medicine for every ill.  Payard pretended to eat horse with
+us, and yet we knew that this could not be his staple diet, for he was
+as fat as a Normandy lamb and as gay.  Many tried to guess his secret,
+but none discovered it, and he would have carried it back to Paris with
+him but for a bottle of brandy I hoarded at my saddle-bow, and opened
+on the night we left Slawkowo.  So deeply did he drink of this that he
+became quite tipsy, and, crouching by my side over the bivouac fire in
+the wood, he told me his story without shame.
+
+"You all say that I live well," he protested.  "True enough; but, bon
+camarade, I steal from the Russians."
+
+"What?" cried I.  "You are known to them, then?"
+
+He laughed at the idea of treachery.
+
+"Do you not know me better than that, major?" said he, his eyes
+flashing in the crimson light.  "I tell you that I go to the Russian
+camp and steal what I want.  Is it not very simple, and should you not
+all have thought of it for yourselves?"
+
+I was very much surprised, and began to question him closely.  How had
+he got the password?  Was it not a highly dangerous undertaking, and
+had he not been fortunate to escape with his life?
+
+All this he treated lightly.  There was danger, of course, but what is
+danger to men who are dying of starvation?  He admitted that he had a
+friend among the Russians, but declared very stoutly that such
+friendship had been of great service both to him and to the Emperor.
+Finally, he said:
+
+"Come with me, major, and bring your nephew, and we will dine among the
+Cossacks to-morrow night.  Are you prepared to take your chance?  Very
+well.  We will start a little before sunset, and we can rejoin the
+column on the following morning.  Come now, and I promise you as good a
+dinner as you could get in our own Paris this night."
+
+The request astonished me very much, and I thought upon it a little
+while.  Leon had been away inspecting the horses, but when he returned
+I mentioned the matter to him, and he did not hesitate a moment.  Of
+course we must go.  Did it not promise us an adventure, and was not
+anything better than the starvation we suffered?  I think, indeed, he
+would have leapt from a mountain-top if there had been food at the
+bottom; and even at my age I could ask myself what perils counted for
+men who marched daily over the bodies of their comrades to a city of
+visions.
+
+
+II
+
+Now this was all very well, but, in truth, the affair was rash enough
+to have satisfied the most reckless.
+
+Remember that we marched like a beaten army, dejected and without
+spirit; thousands dying every day as we went: the road across the snows
+black with the bodies of our comrades who had fallen.  Only the spirit
+which had conquered at Austerlitz and Jena prevented our swift
+annihilation by the Russian wolves, who barked at us from every
+thicket.  If a man lost his way, the sabres of the Cossacks quickly
+showed him the road, or the hatchets of the peasantry put an end to his
+sufferings.  And yet this laughing Payard could propose that we should
+brave the fastnesses of these savages just to find a good dinner beyond
+them--a soldier's invitation, surely, perhaps a madman's project.
+
+I shall not dwell upon this aspect of the adventure, for it must be
+apparent to all.  Whatever misgivings I had at dawn passed away as the
+day waxed and waned and the pangs of a savage hunger devoured me at
+nightfall.  A starving man is no better than a starving dog when he is
+famished, and the Velites were becoming but animals these latter days.
+So you will not wonder that Payard found us ready when he called us at
+sunset and that we set off as willingly as lads from a school.  We were
+going to dine for the first time since we had quitted Moscow.  Happy
+pilgrims upon a gourmet's road--how little we knew what was in store
+for us!
+
+I should tell you here that the regiment had chosen but a bleak place
+for its bivouac that night; a night when the wind began to blow again
+and the moon shone clear in a starlit heaven.  The road crossed a
+shallow valley, in the midst of which was a frozen river.  The banks of
+this were not high enough to give much shelter from the bitter blasts,
+but such as it was our men availed themselves of it and lay in the
+hollows by the water, without fires, since the woods were some miles
+away to the south, and there was not a human habitation to be seen.
+When all that could be done for the good fellows had been accomplished,
+and those who perished of fatigue were carried out of sight of the
+living, Payard called to Leon and myself and we set off briskly over
+the frozen waste.  The time to dine had arrived, though as yet we knew
+nothing of that strange cafe in the wilderness which should harbour us.
+
+"It is an hour's ride from here," said Payard as he mounted his horse;
+"nothing at all, my friends, and no Cossacks until we come to the
+woods.  Then we shall be ready for them.  En avant, mes amis, I am
+going to feed you well."
+
+With this he set off at a brisk trot and we followed him without
+protest.  The way lay in the valley of the river I have mentioned, and
+we followed it for at least two miles until the bank rose more steeply
+and afforded no longer a safe footing for our horses.
+
+Nevertheless, we pressed on until the woods drew down to the water's
+edge, and Payard declared that we had need of horses no longer.  From
+this time, as he quickly told us, we must go afoot for safety's sake;
+and tethering the willing animals to the first of the trees about the
+river's border, we entered the forest.
+
+
+III
+
+Our confidence was wonderful.  We knew no more than the dead where this
+merry fellow was leading us, and yet we followed him as joyous
+adventurers upon the gayest of pilgrimages.  When we heard a distant
+bugle and surmised that we were not far from the Russian camp, we were
+still unable to check his headlong advance, and though it was difficult
+to imagine that he knew the country, our questions concerning it were
+asked in vain.
+
+"A la bonne heure," he would say when checking his step.  "I have
+promised you a good dinner, and I am taking you where you will get it.
+Do not trouble me until we arrive at the house.  Then I will talk to
+you."
+
+To this he added the intimation that it was dangerous to talk in a
+place where the trees had ears.  "Do you wish to dine with the
+Cossacks?" he asked us.  It was a question we could answer very
+decidedly in the negative.
+
+Had we any doubt upon the latter point the sound of galloping horses
+would have made his request for prudence seem reasonable enough.  It
+was evident that he was still following the river bank and that this
+was his only guide.  The woods about were open and gloriously carpeted
+by the glistening snow.  The long stems of the pines, all whitened by
+the frost, stood for so many sleeping sentinels of that hidden army of
+Russians which lay beyond them.  Yet he did not hesitate, and it was
+only when the sounds of approaching horsemen drew quite near to us that
+Payard plunged suddenly into the undergrowth above the river bank and
+bade us follow him for our lives.
+
+"The Cossacks!" cried he, and that was a word we understood too well.
+
+They came up presently, a sturdy troop all frosted with the snow, but
+talking very merrily together as men who had been upon a pleasant
+picnic.  I had no doubt that they had just visited one of our own
+bivouacs, and it was hard to lie there and watch them, knowing that
+they had sabred many an honest Frenchman that day.  Yet prudence
+dictated such a course, and we lay in the brushwood hardly daring to
+breathe while they swept by.  When they had gone, Payard crawled out of
+the bush, and shaking the snow from his massive shoulders, he told us
+pleasantly that we were going to dine with them.
+
+"The camp is a third of a mile from here," he said, "and dinner will be
+waiting.  Let us make haste, my friends, or it will be cold."
+
+It was all an enigma to us, you may be sure, but that was not the time
+to interrogate him about it, and we were content to follow in his steps
+while he pressed on through the wood and presently emerged upon a
+considerable clearing, beyond which were the bivouac fires of the
+Russians.  The sight of this brought us to a halt, and all gathering
+together at the foot of a great chestnut tree, we began to argue about
+it for the first time.
+
+"Yonder is the village of Vitzala," says Payard, indicating some lights
+far off through the trees.  "There has been a Russian camp here under
+General Volska for the last two months.  Madame Pauline is in the first
+house across the clearing.  If we reach that safely, the rest is easy.
+Her husband has gone to Petersburg, and we are not likely to be
+troubled by him.  Of course, you know that she is a Frenchwoman."
+
+We knew nothing of the kind.  As a matter of fact, we had heard her
+name for the first time, but not with astonishment.  It was evident
+from the beginning that he had formed a friendship with one of the many
+Frenchwomen who marched out of Moscow with our army; but that we should
+find her in such a place and camped with Cossacks who were sabring our
+fellows was a surprise indeed.
+
+"What brings her here?" I asked him bluntly enough.
+
+He told me in a word.
+
+"Colonel Tcharnhoff of the dragoons is in love with her.  He is
+supposed to be the richest man in the Russian army; his regiment lies
+yonder in the village, but he himself has gone north to meet the
+Military Council.  I promise you that you are about to meet a very fine
+woman--and one who knows how to dine," he added with a laugh.
+
+His candour disarmed us.  We knew these Frenchwomen too well to doubt
+his story, and all that remained was to discover the house which
+harboured this interesting lady.  Payard said that he had been
+instructed to follow the bank of the river until he came to the
+clearing, and that this would bring him to an isolated cabin upon the
+outskirts of the village.  There he was to find Madame Pauline.  The
+direction was plain, but the darkness of the night rendered the pursuit
+of it difficult.
+
+We were now within a few hundred paces of the Russian camp.  There was
+a wide lake of snow between ourselves and the sheltering thicket, and
+it was apparent that any moment might discover our presence to the
+Russians.  More prudent men would have gone back as they had come; but
+we were as famished as the wolves, and crying to the captain to lead
+on, we bent our heads and ran boldly for the shelter of the distant
+woods.
+
+Luck favoured us to this point.  Standing upon the far side of the
+thicket to listen, we soon perceived that the camp was not alarmed.  It
+is true that we could see the bayonets of the sentries moving between
+the trees, perhaps a hundred yards from the place where we stood; but a
+far more pleasant sight was a lonely wattled hut on the very brink of
+the wood, and this we determined could be no other than Madame
+Pauline's abode.
+
+"As plain as the nose on the end of your face, and a much better
+colour," said Payard, rubbing his own vigorously.  "She would never
+have sent for me if her house had been within the lines.  At any rate,
+my friends, I will take my chance," and upon that he walked straight up
+to the door of this strange habitation and knocked lightly upon it.
+The next moment it was opened by a man who answered him in French; and
+beckoning us to follow, the merry captain entered the hut without
+another word.
+
+
+IV
+
+I have described this building as a hut, and yet when we entered it we
+discovered that it deserved a better appellation.
+
+The relic of an ancient outpost in the woods, it had been used formerly
+by the frontier guards, and, indeed, I have learned since that it
+served for officers' quarters in the days of the great Queen Catherine.
+
+The building that we saw from the thicket was but an ante-chamber to a
+larger apartment which had been furnished in the oddest manner for
+madame's occupation.
+
+A great stove glowed here, and the walls were hung with the costliest
+skins in lieu of tapestries.  For carpet there was but a footing of
+straw rushes, and this was in odd contrast to the luxury elsewhere.
+Better to our liking was a wooden table, lacking a cloth, but spread
+with food such as we had not seen since we left Moscow.
+
+Bread was here--that bread for which we would have bartered our souls
+yesterday.  We espied a great round of beef which would have fed a
+company of men, and a saucepan of potatoes, steaming upon the stove of
+which I have spoken.  Not only this, but dainties innumerable littered
+madame's board; and our eyes feasted already upon the preserved fruits
+which every Russian loves; sweetmeats from Germany, fine liqueurs and
+bottles of wine, all promising a veritable orgy to men who had suffered
+the rigours of that unnameable retreat.
+
+Naturally, Leon and I thought of these things first, but presently we
+heard a voice from a room beyond, and madame herself now appeared and
+greeted us with a welcome which nothing could have surpassed.  Were we
+not Frenchmen, and was she not our sister in the remote wilderness?  Be
+not astonished that we kissed her upon both cheeks as though we had
+known her all our lives.
+
+Let me describe this wonderful personage for you as well as memory
+permits.  Above the middle height, with a superb figure and limbs which
+would not have disgraced a grenadier, she wore the green uniform of the
+Cossacks of the Guard, and mighty well it became her, as we all agreed.
+
+Not a beautiful woman as the canons go; her hair was frankly red,
+though cut short and hardly reaching to her shoulders; yet there was a
+power of character in her face which none could mistake, and she had
+the kindest smile that I have ever seen upon a woman's face.  To us her
+welcome was unqualified.
+
+"You are at home here, my friends," she said; "are you not all
+Frenchmen, and am I not your sister?  Ah, how well I know what you have
+suffered!  Would that I could bring the others here to this mean house
+and give them what they deserve!  Such as it is, however, my
+hospitality is always at the service of yourselves and your comrades.
+Shall we now sit down to table?  You will not tell me that you are not
+ready."
+
+We told her nothing of the kind, but followed her as dogs that hear the
+huntsman's step.  The peril of the house, the chance of our being
+discovered there, the consequence of such discovery, troubled us not at
+all.  We could have taken the meat in our hands and gnawed it as hounds
+will gnaw a bone, and I would say that there could have been no more
+revolting spectacle than that of our appetites at madame's hospitable
+board.  Nothing came amiss to us--meat and drink; sweetmeats and
+liqueurs--we devoured them in a frenzy, and not until we had gorged
+ourselves shamelessly did a man of us put a question as to our
+situation.
+
+Oddly enough, madame heard us with some discomfort, I thought, directly
+we began to speak about the regiment.  Turning to Payard, she said:
+
+"My friend, do you not understand that I am the wife of a Russian
+officer, and can tell you nothing?  I have promised you shelter in this
+house, and you may count upon me; but do not expect me to betray
+anything or anybody.  Rather let me fill your glasses and drink the
+toast that I shall propose to you: 'France, our own beloved country.
+To our safe return!'  Will you not pledge that?"
+
+Naturally we responded with all our hearts to such a pleasant
+sentiment; nay, I think we had drunk the toast at least three times
+when, without warning, the French servant burst into the room, and,
+white as death, he cried, "Madame, here is Colonel Tcharnhoff returned!"
+
+
+V
+
+Now, I do not think at the first we understood the significance of this
+intrusion.
+
+Remember that we had dined very well, and that our heads were turned by
+the good wine madame had offered us.  Perhaps we had forgotten that we
+were in the heart of the enemy's camp, and that for a word they would
+have cut us to pieces.  I remembered vaguely that Payard had spoken of
+a certain Tcharnhoff as one of madame's lovers; but for the moment it
+was difficult to connect the terror of the serving man with the gossip
+of the roadside.
+
+In the same spirit my nephew Leon laughed foolishly when he heard the
+servant, and immediately cried, "Let Colonel Tcharnhoff come in!"  This
+cry Payard himself repeated, banging the table with his fist and
+seeming to think it the best of jokes.  Madame alone rebuked us by her
+attitude.  I have never seen a woman so obviously overcome by terror
+and yet so much mistress of herself.
+
+"Keep your seats," she said, half rising as she spoke.  "Say nothing
+until I have told him."  And with that she stood erect at the head of
+the table and waited for the colonel to enter.
+
+Her attitude sobered us.  The tragic terror of the woman, her fine
+determination, the splendid figure she cut there at the table's head,
+were so many rebukes upon our foolish levity.  Instantly we realised
+that we were in deadly peril by the advent of this unknown man, and
+turning as he entered, we scrutinised him closely.
+
+Ferdinand Tcharnhoff was then in his thirty-fifth year.  They say that
+if you scratch a Russian you will find a Tartar; but this fellow was an
+Eastern from the top of his head to the soles of his feet, and no man
+could have mistaken him.  Bearded like a savage Englishman, his face
+might have been that of an animal, and his cunning eyes those of a pig.
+He wore the white uniform of the dragoons with their cloak and helmet,
+and his sword was still unbuckled when he came in.  Never shall I
+forget the look of astonishment which crossed the man's face when he
+beheld us at his table.
+
+"How?" he cried in his own tongue, and then he looked from us to madame
+and round about at his servants as though fearing that a trap had been
+laid for him.  It was at this moment that madame advanced, both her
+hands outstretched in welcome, and laughing with the wit of a born
+actress.
+
+"These are my friends and relatives from Paris," she cried.  "I am
+feeding them, Ferdinand.  I told you that I would do so if ever I had
+the chance."
+
+It was a bold stroke and worthy of the woman.  The man himself seemed
+quite taken aback at her hardihood, and, acting in the same spirit, he
+now made us a most profound bow and then handed his cloak and sword to
+the servant.
+
+"Gentlemen," said he, in passable French, "I will not say 'Welcome to
+my board!' for that is obviously too late.  Let me trust that you have
+enjoyed a good dinner, an occupation in which I hope to imitate you
+with madame's permission."
+
+He looked at her, and she immediately gave her orders for food to be
+brought.  I think she had expected a different turn to the adventure,
+and was as perplexed as we ourselves at the colonel's attitude.  Here
+was a man who should have been raging against us as spies, sitting by
+us in the most affable mood and eating and drinking as though he were
+in our house and not we in his.  For all that I doubted him even in his
+most condescending moments, and whispering a word to Leon, I suggested
+that we should go.  This brought suspicion to a head.  The Russian
+became sullen in an instant.
+
+"You will stay," he said, and he banged the table with his fist as
+though he had leapt suddenly to the command.  "You will stay,
+messieurs.  Are you not madame's guests?  This is no time of night to
+be in the woods.  There are dangers abroad, messieurs--and wolves.
+Upon my word, I am surprised at you--to mention such a thing."
+
+We resumed our seats, and he fell to smiling again; yet it was with the
+snarl of one of those very wolves he had mentioned.  A low cunning
+laugh, the like of which I have never heard, betrayed a deeper purpose
+than that of hospitality.  We, in our turn, understood then the whole
+peril of the situation.  The man was playing with us as a cat with
+mice; he had but begun the role he meant to undertake.
+
+"You are foolish, messieurs," he went on presently; "indeed most
+foolish.  Consider what would happen to you if you left this house
+against my will.  The sentries would detain you, and there would be an
+inquiry at head-quarters.  We are very unkind to traitors when they
+visit our camps, and we have our own way of dealing with them.  Do you
+remember Major Royate, of the Engineers, whom the Cossacks took at
+Plavno?  They tied him to a tree, I think, and the wolves ate him at
+sundown.  Then there was your Lieutenant de Duras, whom they burned on
+a fire of logs at Letizka; and another, I think, was hacked to pieces
+with sabres on the eve of Borodino.  All this is very terrible, but in
+your words, _a la guerre comme a la guerre_.  You say that you fight
+with barbarians, and you will not quarrel with their customs.  Are they
+not poor savages whom you have come here to correct?  Messieurs, I do
+not know what would happen to you if I gave the alarm from that window
+at this minute.  It would not be the water, for the river is frozen;
+but it might very well be the wolves, as your ears will bear witness if
+you will be good enough to listen."
+
+With this he opened the rude  window of the barn, and far away in the
+thick of the forest we could hear the dismal howling of the famished
+brutes.  What was the man's intention, or why he talked in this way, I
+could not imagine; but presently, as he drank deeper, his reserve
+became less and his true meaning more apparent.  Not for a moment had
+he been deceived by the tale which madame told him.  One of us, he
+knew, was her lover, and that man he meant to discover and to kill.
+
+"Frenchmen," he said presently, passion growing upon him as he spoke,
+"I will let two of you leave this house if the third remains.  Cast
+lots amongst yourselves, if you please; it is a matter of indifference
+to me.  But one man I will give to my Cossacks, so help me Heaven!"
+And with that he laughed savagely, as though this sudden humour pleased
+him mightily.
+
+To this it was impossible to make any answer.  We held our tongues,
+while Madame Pauline crossed over to the man's side and began to speak
+rapidly in Russian.  It was plain, however, that she both appealed and
+commanded in vain.  An Eastern passion for revenge suffered no woman's
+entreaty.  He knew that none of us would betray the others, and he
+believed that he had us all in the net of a devilish vengeance.
+
+"Two of you shall go," he kept saying--"two.  I will give you five
+minutes by the clock.  If you do not make a choice then, it is for my
+Cossacks to deal with you.  As you please, messieurs; that is my last
+word."
+
+We had no response to make.  The man's anger and the woman's despair
+were both very dreadful things to hear and see, and we turned aside
+from them to argue the question in quick whispers.  Plain was it that
+our hope of life hung upon a thread, and, all our fighting instinct
+returning, we began to say that we must deal with Tcharnhoff ourselves.
+Should we make a dash from the house, or should we seize the man where
+he stood?  The latter seemed the wiser thing.  We risked all by doing
+so, and yet might win all.  No sooner was the course determined upon
+than, snatching his sword from the chair where it lay, Payard made a
+dash for the Cossack.  Alas! that was the last thing he ever did in his
+life, for a pistol-shot rang out at the very instant, and our friend
+fell dead across the table.  Tcharnhoff had shot him; and the smoke had
+not lifted when Pauline herself stabbed her lover to the heart, and he
+rolled headlong on the floor, almost at my feet.
+
+"Go!" she cried, her face white as with the pallor of death.  "I will
+say that you killed him.  Go and leave me."
+
+We waited for no other word.  In the distance we heard the report of a
+musket and the alarm spreading through the camp.  We had an instant
+between us and eternity, and be sure we made the best of it.
+
+
+VI
+
+It was a glorious night when we reached the open, a full moon shining
+upon us and the snow glistening as though dusted with diamonds.
+
+We could see the bivouac fires of the camp still burning brightly and
+the figures of the awakened Cossacks moving about them.  You may
+imagine how the spectacle quickened our steps, and with what wild hope
+of life we crossed the frozen ground to the horses which stood for our
+salvation.
+
+For myself I do not think I have ever run so fast in my life, and never
+shall run again, as upon that amazing night.  Already my heated fancy
+would have it that I could hear the thunder of hoofs upon the snow and
+the savage cries of the men whose sabres would cut us down.  The
+stillness all about us, the silent majesty of the frozen woods, the
+utter solitude of the steppes enhanced this impression and all the
+gloom of it.  What fools we had been to come on such an errand at all!
+And how dearly we had paid for it already!  It now remained to prove
+that we could become men even in the face of death most revolting.
+
+I say that we ran, but that is hardly the word for it.  So difficult
+was the ground, so slippery, that sometimes we would be on our feet and
+sometimes sliding like lads at a school.  The clamour behind us was now
+unmistakable, but plainly it converged upon the house we had left, and
+we doubted not that Pauline's wit would give us grace.  When we at last
+came up to the horses, neither of us could speak for sheer exhaustion
+of the chase, but we clambered headlong into our saddles, and, letting
+poor Payard's charger go whither it would, we galloped across the open
+steppes, and entered the first of the woods beyond them.  It seemed now
+that we were safe, yet what men have ever suffered a greater delusion?
+Hardly had we gone three hundred paces when we came face to face with a
+party of horsemen, and, reining back in confusion, we discovered them
+to be Cossacks returning to the camp.
+
+The rencontre was swift and a surprise upon both parties.  We, being on
+the look-out, were naturally the first to draw rein; but the Cossacks,
+upon their side hardly less watchful, were quickly at the halt and
+eyeing us wonderingly.  Such a droll state of affairs would have amused
+any man who read an account of it in a book, but it was serious enough
+to us.
+
+For a brief instant it appeared that we were lost beyond hope, and had
+nothing to do but to kneel in the snow before these brigands.  There
+were some eighty of them as I could see, and every man now whipped his
+sword from his scabbard.  We were but two against them, and not fifty
+paces from the place where they were halted, and you will judge of our
+astonishment when they did not fire upon us.  This very interval of
+silence was to be our salvation, for suddenly my nephew wheeled his
+horse about, and crying to me to follow him, he spurred wildly from the
+wood.  Be sure that I imitated him with all my blood afire and a wild
+hope of life leaping suddenly to my heart.  Their horses had been long
+afoot, said I, while ours had rested.  We might outride them yet, and
+were madmen if we did not put the matter to an issue.
+
+
+VII
+
+So behold us galloping headlong from that fearsome place, the snow
+flying beneath our horses' hoofs, our heads bent and our swords drawn.
+For a time I knew not whether we were gaining or losing upon the savage
+horde which followed us.  Wild cries echoed in my ears; the night was
+black about me; I heard the stertorous breathing of the willing horses,
+the thunder of their hoofs upon the cruel ground.  Then a great silence
+fell.  Leon hailed me, and I could hear his voice distinctly.
+
+"They are done with," he said; and upon that, "What do you make of it?"
+
+"How?" cried I.  "They are not following us!"  And then I reined back
+to listen.
+
+We must have travelled a league by this time, but the face of the bleak
+country was unchanged.  Dense woods and gigantic lakes of snow were the
+outstanding features, and over all the paralysing silence of a Russian
+night.  Good God! what a solitude, and yet we had won freedom in it!
+
+"They did not think us worth powder and shot," says Leon presently.
+"Perhaps they were hungry, or"--and here he pointed grimly over his
+shoulder--"they may have preferred the camp to that."
+
+I looked at him curiously.
+
+"Of what are you speaking?" I asked him, and at that he shrugged his
+shoulders.
+
+"Listen," he cried, "and then answer for yourself, mon oncle."
+
+I took a pull upon the rein again, and bent my ear towards the wood.  A
+weird sound, like to nothing but the howling of the doomed, broke the
+silence all about and made its meaning clear.  We had lost the
+Cossacks, but the wolves were on our track; aye, thousands of
+them--leaping, barking, snarling from their fastnesses, and bending
+their heads to the chase like hounds that follow a scent.  Good God,
+what a sight that was to see!  With what terror the spectacle filled us
+as we let the maddened horses go and rode again from an enemy more
+terrible than man!
+
+I had heard of the wolves of Russia, but had seen but few of them
+during the terrible days of the retreat.
+
+Perchance the fact that we had rarely left our comrades might have had
+something to do with it, for naturally the fret and stir of an army in
+retreat would scare such beasts even at such a season; but here the
+story was otherwise.  They had scented the horses, and nothing now
+would stop them.  Gallop as we would, they gained upon us, and
+presently were leaping at the throats of the terrified brutes we rode.
+
+In vain we discharged our pistols, struck at them with our swords, and
+cried for aid to any that might be near us.  They came again, with jaws
+distended and dripping fangs, and we had not gone the third of a league
+when one caught Leon's horse by the throat and, hanging there, dragged
+the brute shrieking to the ground.
+
+Surely any man might now have believed that the end had come, and that,
+whatever else befell, the regiment would see us no more.
+
+There was the horse being torn to pieces before our eyes; there was my
+nephew striking at the wolves with his sword while I endeavoured
+maladroitly to lift him to my saddle.  The latter task was soon
+rendered impossible by the ferocity of the savage beasts who now
+swarmed about us.  They had my own horse down before a man could have
+counted ten, and, leaping from it as it fell, I ran headlong towards
+the woods for any shelter that could be found.
+
+Our lives now did not seem worth a scudo.  There must have been
+thousands of wolves about the horses; a black wood was upon our left
+hand, a wide, boundless plain before us.  Nevertheless, that dim hope
+which sustains men in all emergencies remained, and, crying to one
+another to take courage, we entered the wood.  There, to our wonder and
+amazement, we discerned immediately the haven of our salvation.  It was
+a woodlander's hut, not twenty yards from the open, and hardly had we
+espied it before we were locked and barred within and laughing at the
+very magnitude of our misfortune.
+
+
+VIII
+
+It must have been about three o'clock of the morning by this time.
+
+The hut itself had one window looking over the plain, but was as bare
+of furniture as any room in a madhouse.  Leon's tinder-box revealed a
+floor of baked earth and a stove which lacked fuel, and this, with a
+shelf upon which there stood empty jars, was all the ornament this
+fortress possessed.  To us, however, it was more beautiful than any
+palace, and, taking a drain of brandy from our flasks, we climbed up to
+the window and looked out over the snows.
+
+Our poor horses were but bones by this time, and there were hundreds of
+the wolves fighting about the carcasses.  Less to our liking were the
+slinking forms about the hut itself and the savage howling which
+assailed our ears.  It was clear that the brutes had scented us out,
+and would stand sentinel until their courage was screwed up to
+something more.  We could count them by the hundred as they prowled
+round and round the hut, leaping often at the window, and snarling when
+the butts of our pistols drove them back.  Some, indeed, went so far as
+to spring upon the roof, and there yapped and howled most dismally;
+while, as for ourselves, we could but keep guard and wonder what the
+day would bring.  Would it send aid to us, or must we be prisoners
+there until we perished of hunger and cold?  This was a question
+neither dared answer.  The minutes became as hours while we waited for
+the dawn.  The horror of the snow paralysed our faculties and almost
+forbade speech between us.
+
+I cannot tell you truly of all that happened during that appalling
+vigil.  It is odd to look back to it now and to remember the light
+words with which Leon and I would endeavour to cheer each other; how we
+laughed and jested when our nerves were at a tension and it seemed that
+any minute the cold might overcome us and the door be left open to
+death in its most revolting aspect.  But an instant of carelessness,
+and there would have been a dozen brutes at our throats, and we should
+have shared the fate of the wretched horses whose very bones were now
+vanished from the plain.
+
+All this was in our minds, yet our lips made no mention of it.
+"Courage," we said; "the day will help us."  It seemed a vain hope, for
+who should be in this wild place when the sun rose again?  You answer
+the Cossacks.  Aye, true enough, it was the Cossacks who came just as
+the day had dawned, and the red light of the morning sun shimmered upon
+that frozen sea.
+
+Leon heard them sooner than I, but the brutes were quicker than he.  I
+had taken my turn at the window, and had just crashed my pistol into a
+gaping mouth which menaced me, when the wolves around suddenly pricked
+their ears and turned their heads towards the east.
+
+"There are horsemen at the gallop," said Leon at the same moment; and,
+listening, I heard the muffled thunder of hoofs upon the snow.
+
+"Would they be our own men?" I asked him.
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"We must be five leagues from the high road.  Which of our fellows
+would come this way?"
+
+I could not answer that, and had no need to, for hardly were the words
+spoken when a troop of Cossacks appeared at a gallop, and instantly the
+wolves closed in about them.  This was a fine sight, and one I never
+shall forget.  To watch those dashing horsemen hewing and firing and
+slashing at the pack about them, to wonder why they thus rode
+desperately, to speculate upon their destination, were all in the
+mind's task as the picture unfolded.  Were we the pursued, or had they
+other quarry?  Certainly they would not have to look far for us, for
+there in their track upon the snow lay our saddles and bridles, at
+which the famished brutes still gnawed.
+
+Now, it occurred to me that they must certainly discover us, and that
+our shrift would be short.  The beasts themselves, scared by the
+thunder of the sounds, broke presently and fled to the woods whence
+they had come.  The Cossacks rode up to the very place where our
+bridles lay, and yet they did not halt.  What drove them thence?  I
+will tell you in a word--the Red Hussars of our own Guard were at their
+heels, hunting them as though they were vermin of the woods, and
+cutting them down without pity like wheat that falls before a sickle.
+
+Ah! what a sight that was to see.  What sounds were those to hear--the
+shrieks of the poor devils whose skulls were cleaved, the cries of
+triumph of the victorious pursuers--they were music in our ears.  Yet
+saner men would have asked how this majesty of war would help us.  But
+five minutes had passed when pursued and pursuers were gone as they had
+come, and we were alone again.  The situation had changed but in
+this--that no wolf now yapped about that wattled hut.  We climbed from
+its window, and went out through the wood without fear.  We were alone,
+and far from salvation.  At least, we thought so for a full hour, until
+a second troop of the Red Hussars appeared in the open, and we hailed
+them joyfully.
+
+Then, indeed, was the end of the story written, and then we knew that
+we should see our comrades again.
+
+
+IX
+
+We returned to the bivouac of the Velites that night, and there told
+our story.  Many mourned the gallant Payard, but there were others who
+asked of Madame Pauline.  What had happened to her after we had fled
+from the camp?  We could not answer the question then, but I answered
+it in the following June in Paris, when I met her in the Rue de Rivoli
+and recognised her instantly.  A fine woman, messieurs, and one who is
+a very good judge of a dinner, believe me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE WITCH IN ERMINE
+
+I
+
+I have spoken little of the Emperor during these momentous days; but it
+is to be remembered that I was chiefly with the rearguard, and so I
+hardly saw His Majesty until we came to Slawkowo.
+
+Often have I been asked in Paris how he carried himself during the
+terrible retreat from Moscow, and how it came to be that he escaped the
+fate which overtook nearly half a million of men in that fearful
+flight.  I have always answered that the Emperor took his fair share
+both of the risks and the hardships of the journey, and that, so far
+from travelling in his famous berline, he was often afoot, walking with
+and encouraging the soldiers who had served him so well.
+
+It is true that he never suffered the miseries of an open bivouac, and
+that, wherever we went, some habitation was discovered at night to
+shelter him and the intimate members of his staff.  Food, also, he had
+in abundance, and often shared it with his staff.  What he could not
+escape was the peril of the Cossacks, who swarmed upon our flanks like
+wasps, and rarely left us an hour in which we could march with
+confidence.
+
+Some there are who say that Napoleon Bonaparte was entirely without
+pity for his fellow men.  I have seen it recorded that he marched over
+the dying and the dead with indifference, and was even heard to say
+that no man who had seen so many corpses upon a high road could ever
+believe in the immortality of the soul.  This must be a malicious
+invention of his enemies, and it would not be accepted by any soldiers
+of the Guard.  The Emperor suffered as we suffered during those
+unforgettable days, and more than one man could tell of the pity
+bestowed upon him by the general for whom he would so willingly have
+died.
+
+
+II
+
+Let me give you an instance of what befell us when we were some leagues
+from Smolensk and were approaching the village of Liadoui.
+
+The Emperor had ridden out of the town that morning escorted by the
+grenadiers and the chasseurs, Prince Eugene with General Davoust and
+Ney being left behind in charge of the rearguard.
+
+I myself set out with the Velites about an hour after His Majesty had
+left, upon a road whereon familiar scenes were soon to be encountered.
+
+The army had got no food in Smolensk, and its sufferings began again
+directly we reached the open country.  Just as heretofore, men fell out
+and perished before the eyes of their helpless comrades.  Some would
+stagger for a little while like drunken men, stretching out their arms
+to us and craving pity; others went mad in their delirium, and I
+remember well with what horror we saw a dragoon gnawing madly at the
+neck of a frozen horse, while his lips were red with his own blood.  To
+all this we had now become inured, and, knowing the impossibility of
+helping the poor wretches who succumbed, we could but shut pity from
+our hearts and bend our heads to the bitter wind which swept over this
+God-forsaken land.
+
+It was during this march that I came up with the Emperor, who had been
+riding with the grenadiers and was now halted in a picturesque group
+near by the edge of a thicket.
+
+Here we found a poor woman whose baby was but two days old, and who
+mourned the loss of this infant--frozen stark dead--as though she had
+been at her own home in Paris.  She was a cantiniere of the fusiliers,
+and her husband, an old soldier who had fought at Jena, did what he
+could for her; but it was all of no avail, and despite His Majesty's
+command that I myself should attend her and that she should be given of
+the best from the Imperial supplies, she expired in the snow before our
+eyes.
+
+The Emperor was greatly affected by this distressing occurrence, and
+when he saw that the poor woman was dead he commanded me to accompany
+him, intimating that there was hardly a surgeon left in his entourage.
+This compliment pleased me very much, remembering how we had parted,
+and I rode by His Majesty's side for some leagues, telling him all that
+I had seen and done since we quitted Moscow.  What surprised me
+particularly was that he made no mention of Mademoiselle Valerie, nor
+of her visit to him at Slawkowo and of the episode which had led up to
+it.  It was his wont, however, thus to treat the officers he liked
+best, and if I had been doubtful of his favour on that occasion, I
+could take heart when he pinched my ear suddenly as we came to the
+village of Liadoui and said with a smile: "You will remain with me
+to-night, major; I have something very much in your line."
+
+This was a quite unexpected compliment, and brought the blood to my
+cheeks.  I could not readily imagine upon what service His Majesty
+would employ me, but I spent the day in anxious speculation, and when
+he summoned me at about nine o'clock that night I was all agog, as you
+may well imagine.
+
+Why had I been thus chosen, and what was the employment?
+
+You shall see now how very strange an affair it turned out to be.
+
+
+III
+
+The village of Liadoui is built of wood upon an open situation not many
+leagues from Krasnoe.  The Emperor slept at the post-house, a modest
+edifice which two companies of the fusiliers were to guard.  I myself
+got a bivouac with the priest, who needed more than one blow from the
+butt end of a musket before he was glad to see me.  The whole situation
+of the little force in Liadoui would have been considered dangerous at
+any other time, but we had to take the best we could, and the fact that
+there were Russians on both flanks had ceased to trouble us while we
+could get food and shelter.
+
+For the first time now for many a day I got a dish of beef and rice
+that night, and a bottle of wine to wash it down.  This His Majesty
+sent me from his own table, and be sure I shared it with my comrades.
+We were in consequence quite a happy company, and we sang "Veillons au
+salut de l'Empire" as merrily as we might have done in the barracks at
+Paris.  Then came His Majesty's summons for Major Constant to attend
+him at once; and quitting my comrades with reluctance, I put on the
+great fur coat which I had carried from Moscow, and went across to the
+post-house.
+
+Much to my surprise I found the Emperor alone.  He sat in a spacious
+room overlooking the street, and the remains of his dinner were still
+upon the table.  Clad in the well-known grey overcoat and the little
+cocked hat, without which none of us would have recognised him, I
+perceived also that he had a heavy cape of fur about his shoulders and
+wore fur-topped boots almost to his hips.  He seemed mightily pleased
+to see me, and, pouring out a glass of wine, he bade me drink it.
+
+"Do you remember this place?" he asked me as the first question.
+
+I told him that the Velites had not passed that way before, having
+taken the northern road to Moscow.  He, however, hardly waited for my
+answer, but, watching me drink the wine, he said:
+
+"I see that you do not know it.  That is to the good; you will not ask
+me unnecessary questions.  Now drink your wine and come and see your
+patient.  She is young--you will not object to that.  The Velites, I
+understand, are critical; it is for that reason I chose a surgeon from
+your ranks."
+
+He laughed as though pleased at the jest.  Buttoning the fur cape
+closely about him, he left the room immediately, and I followed him,
+the wine freezing upon my moustache as soon as we were out in the
+bitter night.
+
+Never have I known a cold so intense nor a wind that shrivelled the
+flesh so quickly.  Yet the scene itself was picturesque enough, and
+under any other circumstances a man might have stopped to marvel at it.
+The moon now shone full and clear from a cloudless sky; the trees about
+Liadoui glistened with a thousand diamonds of the frost; the snow
+beneath our feet was as hard as iron and burnished with a sheen of
+silver light.  Imagine upon this wooden houses with all their windows
+aglow, dark forms moving here and there, the distant rumble of cannon
+upon the road, and even the echo of musket shots, and you will see the
+picture as I saw and remember it.
+
+Whither was the Emperor going, and upon what errand?  I could not so
+much as imagine his purpose when we quitted the post-house and,
+crossing the street, entered upon a narrow footpath which seemed about
+to lead to the neighbouring forest.  The peril of such a journey, with
+the Cossacks all about us and the night hawks everywhere, would have
+been patent to a child, and it even amazed an old soldier like myself,
+who could but marvel at such imprudence.
+
+Was it possible that His Majesty could be about to visit the Russian
+camp secretly, as so many of our brave fellows had done?
+
+I dared for the moment to believe it, until the shape of a house
+emerged suddenly from the shadows and I saw that we had come to a
+considerable habitation upon the very brink of the woods.  To my
+astonishment this was guarded by sentinels, and no sooner were we out
+of the shadows than one of them challenged us angrily.
+
+"Salut de l'Empire," said His Majesty, advancing with a smile, and, the
+man having brought his musket to the salute, we passed the gate and
+entered the house.
+
+
+IV
+
+Naturally we were expected.  It was evident that His Majesty would
+never have gone upon such a journey if he had not known very well that
+he would find a welcome at the end of it.  The army hears many stories
+and must listen at all times with prudent ears.  We had mentioned the
+name of more than one _belle fille_ since we had left Paris, and we
+knew that we should mention many another before we returned there.  So
+you will imagine my surprise when it was not a young woman but a very
+old one who greeted us upon the threshold of this remote house.
+
+I saw she was old, but it would have puzzled a man to have guessed her
+age.  Shrivelled and wan, with a skin of parchment and hair of flax,
+her eyes nevertheless glittered like those of a hawk, and her hands
+were ablaze with diamonds of wonderful lustre.  Her dress was rich, and
+such as usually worn by noblewomen in Russia.  She wore a silk robe
+trimmed with ermine, and the most wonderful cape of the same costly fur
+about her hunched shoulders.  To His Majesty she was deferential beyond
+compare.  She welcomed him with a curtsey full of the old-time
+stateliness, and to me she extended her hand to be kissed.  Then she
+bade us enter the salle a manger of the house, and I perceived at once
+that supper was prepared there.
+
+I have told you that it was an extensive dwelling, though built of
+wood, and certainly this apartment was fine enough for anything.  The
+walls were everywhere hung with old French tapestry; the furniture must
+have come from our own Paris.  There was china of Sevres upon the
+table, and that extravagant porcelain in which the East and the West
+commingle and delight.  Two liveried servants stood at the table's head
+and bowed low as the Emperor entered.  He, however, appeared but ill at
+ease, and I plainly perceived that he was seeking someone whose
+presence he had expected.
+
+This whetted my curiosity.  The old lady herself, setting His Majesty
+at the head of her table, now sat down upon his right hand, and
+motioned me to a seat beside her.  Then she made a signal to the
+lackeys, and instantly they began to serve us with all manner of
+luxuries unlooked for in such a place, and certainly not discovered
+since we had left Moscow.
+
+The man who has lived upon horseflesh for many days is a good judge of
+any kind of cooking, and I could not but think, as I sat at the table,
+of that unhappy mendicant who had said to Louis XV., "Sire, how hungry
+I am!" and had been answered with the quip, "Lucky devil."
+
+To me this Was a Gargantuan feast such as had never been surpassed in
+all my years.
+
+We had the fine sturgeon in which the Russians delight, their own
+caviare, excellent mutton, and chickens which were matchless, and all
+washed down with the wines of Burgundy, and upon that with draughts of
+our own magnificent brandy.  When we had finished we were even offered
+a little preserved fruit and some of the tobacco which the Russians
+smoke rolled in slips of paper.  His Majesty condescended to try one of
+these, but made little of it, and presently it became apparent to me
+that he was anxious, and that his anxiety no longer brooked the control
+of silence.
+
+"Madame," he asked without warning, "where is your daughter Kyra?"
+
+The question had been expected, and madame lifted her wise eyes when
+she heard it.
+
+"Ah!" she exclaimed in French, "so you are anxious to speak to Kyra
+again."
+
+"Why not?" says His Majesty.  "She told me many things I wished to
+hear; is that not a reason?"
+
+"And your Majesty found them true?"
+
+For an instant the Emperor seemed to be dreaming.  Then, tapping the
+table lightly with his fingers, he said:
+
+"In the main they were true.  She told me that Moscow would be burned."
+
+Madame Zchekofsky--for such I discovered the lady's name to be--feigned
+great pity.
+
+"Ah, what a dreadful thing--and so many of your poor soldiers who
+suffered!  Little did I think when I heard the child speak that such
+wisdom was in her keeping, but so it is, as your Majesty admits."
+
+"Most willingly.  I expected to hear more of it to-night.  Is your
+daughter ill, or is she merely absent?"
+
+Madame Zchekofsky shook her head.
+
+"She is ill, sire; it is the bitter cold of this terrible winter.
+Otherwise she would have been by your Majesty's side to-night."
+
+"Ah!" cried the Emperor, with a gesture Of disappointment; "then I must
+not see her?"
+
+"I fear not.  These visions are not to be encouraged, as I am sure Dr.
+Constant will tell you.  Those who command them suffer much afterwards.
+Is it not so, doctor?"
+
+I hardly knew how to answer her.  It had come to me suddenly that this
+old woman was playing with both of us, and there flashed upon me the
+disquieting thought that His Majesty's life might even be in danger.
+Could the Russians have laid hands upon him at such a moment and
+carried him a prisoner to Petersburg, then indeed were the fortunes of
+my country imperilled, and a blow struck at the Empire from which it
+might never recover.  Yet what was I to do?  The Emperor was as good a
+judge as I of the situation, and it would have been the mere effrontery
+of a subordinate which would have reminded him of its dangers.
+
+"Madame," said I, "these things do not concern men of common sense.
+When I go to bed at night the only vision that I look for is that of
+the morning sun.  If your daughter be a prophetess, I am sorry for you
+both, for it has never seemed to me a profitable occupation.
+Discourage her if you can--that is my advice."
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"And yet you heard His Majesty say that she foretold the burning of
+Moscow?"
+
+"A guess at hazard," said I.  "What is more, madame, she may have known
+that your Emperor was about to burn it.  These things are not done by
+one or two people, but by many thousands.  It is quite probable that
+she should have heard of the intentions."
+
+His Majesty smiled at this, yet the old hawk regarded me with some
+malice.  What her object was--whether to push the fortunes of her house
+with the Emperor, or merely to advance his interest in her daughter--I
+could not then imagine; but I know now that she had intended to follow
+us to Paris and there to establish herself if she could.
+
+My pessimism evidently angered her; she had looked for me to support
+His Majesty in this amiable humour.
+
+"Well," said she, rising abruptly, "it is easy to put the matter to the
+proof.  Kyra should not leave her room, but His Majesty may go there if
+he will.  He shall then tell me if it were a guess or no.  Do you
+desire that, sire?"
+
+I could see that the Emperor was greatly pleased; he rose at once and
+waited for her to show him the way.  In that brief interval I stepped
+to his side and begged to be permitted to follow him.
+
+"A whim, if you like, sire.  Perhaps I am also a prophet," said I, and
+we exchanged a glance I shall never forget.
+
+The Emperor knew that he was in peril, then.  Did he also know the
+nature of it?  If so, he were wiser than I, who followed him merely
+upon an impulse for which I could not account.
+
+
+V
+
+We mounted a wide flight of stairs and stood for an instant before a
+great carved door at the head of them.  The house was very silent, and
+the lackeys had disappeared.  I could hear the distant sounds in the
+village and from the high road the rumble of cannon and the blare of
+bugles.  But these were fitful and easily to be explained.  What I did
+not like was the uncanny silence in the dwelling itself.  We entered a
+great ante-room on the first floor, and from that passed to a little
+bedroom such as a young girl might have occupied.  It was empty, but
+madame knocked at the door which led from it, and, receiving no
+immediate answer, we all sat down and waited in the darkness.
+
+"The child sleeps," said the Emperor.
+
+The old woman muttered something I could not distinguish.
+
+"Of what nature is her illness?" His Majesty asked next.
+
+"It has been a fever," says madame; "but she is better of that, and now
+suffers only from weakness."
+
+"In which case we must wait until she awakes.  Do you not suggest a
+better place than this, madame?"
+
+Madame rose at this rebuke.
+
+"I will go in myself," she said; but before she could take a step the
+door of the adjoining room was opened and Mademoiselle Kyra herself
+appeared.
+
+Her dress was a long white robe tied with a girdle.  Her hair was like
+her mother's, but more silken in texture, and fell, as the hair of many
+Russian women does, almost to her feet.  I thought her amazingly
+beautiful--by far the prettiest woman I had yet seen in this damnable
+country, and, in truth, I envied His Majesty such good fortune.  He,
+however, seemed in no way impressed by the child's looks, but only by
+her attitude, which was that of one who walked in her sleep and might
+not be awakened without danger.  Stepping back, with his finger on his
+lips, the Emperor let the girl go slowly from the room to the great
+antechamber beyond, we following upon tiptoe, as though we spied upon
+this unlooked-for apparition.
+
+For a moment I thought that Mademoiselle Kyra was about to descend the
+stairs to the dining room we had left, but she crossed the landing at
+the stairs head, and, opening a door upon the far side, entered another
+bedroom, and from that a spacious apartment furnished like a chapel.
+Here the Emperor followed her, but madame forbade me to go.  I had an
+instantaneous vision of a picture of the Madonna and a lamp burning
+before it.  Then I saw the girl stumble and appear about to fall, but
+His Majesty caught her in his arms, and madame immediately closed the
+door upon them.
+
+"You can wait," she said, and, closing the door of the bedroom and
+drawing a heavy curtain over it, she left me standing sentinel in that
+black, dark room.
+
+
+VI
+
+It was an odd situation, I must confess.
+
+The army is well acquainted with more than one such expedition in which
+His Majesty has figured, and I was not the first officer, by many, who
+had watched a house wherein he pursued an adventure of this kind.
+
+But here the circumstances were very different.
+
+The girl was not as other women of whom we spoke in merriment.  She had
+come from her apartment in sleep, and was sleeping, I believe, when she
+entered the chapel.  The impulse which drove His Majesty appeared to me
+to be curiosity rather than love.  I have heard that he was somewhat
+given to omens and the occult sciences, and while pretending to be an
+absolute disbeliever in them, would nevertheless lend a willing ear to
+any charlatan who had a tale to tell.  Mademoiselle Kyra had forewarned
+him of certain happenings upon his march to Moscow, so what could be
+more natural than that he should desire to hear what she had to say of
+his retreat?
+
+These thoughts were uppermost in my mind when I found myself alone in
+the room.  I could hear no sound whatever from the chapel, not even
+that of a woman whispering.  The house itself had fallen again to a
+silence quite remarkable.  I tried to look from the window of the
+bedroom, but found it so frosted that not a thing could be seen beyond.
+The old lady herself had disappeared and gone I knew not whither.
+Another, perhaps, would have spied upon the Emperor, and even found a
+pretext for following him into the chapel.  This kind of curiosity has
+never afflicted me, and all that I remembered was the continued peril
+of our situation.
+
+How if the Cossacks made a sudden dash upon Liadoui and overpowered the
+sentinels at the gate!
+
+Nothing could be easier than such an assault.  We had but two regiments
+of the grenadiers in the village, and they were worn to death with
+marching.  Indeed, I believed they were already sleeping in any bivouac
+they could find.  The guns were mostly a day's march ahead of us, and
+we had little artillery in our train.  Nothing, I said, could be looked
+for as surely as a sudden descent of the Cossacks upon any house in
+which they might imagine the Emperor to be sleeping.  So you will
+understand my sense of responsibility and the keen ear I leant to any
+sounds from without.
+
+The silence of the night seemed, indeed, almost unnatural.  I began to
+be affrighted by it.  What was odd was the length of time His Majesty
+was closeted in the dark chapel.  It is true that I heard the sound of
+voices when a little while had passed, and that a busy murmur of talk
+went on at intervals for a full hour.  Then for a spell again there was
+silence, and it was during that interval that I first heard the alarm
+from without.
+
+There were horsemen approaching the village.  My trained ear told me
+the truth in an instant, and bending it to the glass, I made sure that
+I was not mistaken.  Horsemen, I said, were riding across the frozen
+snow, either towards Liadoui or to Madame Zchekofsky's dwelling.  No
+sooner was the opinion formed than the cry of a dying man confirmed it.
+Someone had sabred or bayoneted the sentry at the gate.  There is no
+mistaking that awful cry which a man utters when he realises that he
+has lived his life and that the steel within him has reached his heart.
+I knew it too well, and, springing back at the sound, I ran to the
+chapel doors and beat heavily upon them.
+
+"Your Majesty," I cried, "for God's sake!"
+
+The door was locked, but someone opened it instantly, and there stood
+Mademoiselle Kyra and the Emperor by her side.  She was wide awake now
+and a look of terror had come upon her pretty face.
+
+"I beg you to go," she said to him.
+
+For answer he stepped out into the bedroom and asked me what was the
+matter.
+
+"The Cossacks are here," I cried; "they have killed the sentinel.  Your
+Majesty must not delay."
+
+Napoleon Bonaparte was no coward, as all the world knows, and he heard
+me almost with nonchalance.
+
+"Are you quite sure?" he asked.
+
+I told him that there was no doubt of it.
+
+"Listen for yourself, sire," said I; "they are entering the house."
+
+He shrugged his shoulders and turned to Mademoiselle Kyra.
+
+"Is there a way out by the chapel?" he asked her.
+
+Her affrighted eyes answered him.
+
+"You will have to return by the great staircase," said she; and at that
+he smiled, for we could hear already the tramp of many feet upon it.
+
+"That is a pity," says he now.  "Major Constant must see what they
+want."
+
+Then, speaking very earnestly to me, he exclaimed: "I count upon your
+devotion, major; do what you can."  And instantly he re-entered the
+chapel, and I drew the curtain across its doors.
+
+There was now, I suppose, an interval of ten good seconds in which I
+had an opportunity to think.  Two alternatives faced me--I might either
+draw my sword and meet the men as they entered, or feign fraternity and
+so try to disarm their suspicions.  The latter course occurred to me as
+the wiser, and without a moment's hesitation I sprang upon the bed and
+drew the heavy counterpane over my shoulders.  The thing was hardly
+done when the door burst open and some ten men entered the room.  They
+were Cossacks of the Guard, and every man had his sword drawn.
+
+
+VII
+
+I know little of the Russian tongue, but the few words that I have were
+sufficient to tell me that the first cry uttered by the leader of the
+men was for light.  This was echoed down the stairs, and presently
+there came a sergeant with a lantern and another behind him with a wax
+candle in his hand.
+
+I had not moved during the interval, and I lay still yet a little
+while.  The fellows began to peer about immediately, and of course they
+soon discovered me upon the bed.  Then, truly, I thought that I had not
+a minute to live.  There were the barbarians, savage as it seemed in
+the lust of blood.  There was I as helpless as a bullock at the
+slaughter.  They had but to cut and thrust, and the story of
+Surgeon-Major Constant would have been written for all time.  You may
+imagine how my heart beat while I waited to feel the prick of the steel
+and wondered how death in such a shape would come.
+
+To a man so placed delay is but an agony anew.  I could have prayed
+that they would strike swiftly, and when they did not strike I laughed
+aloud like a woman grown hysterical.
+
+God in heaven, how I laughed!  Sitting up in the bed and watching that
+ring of steel, no hyena in the wilderness uttered such sounds as I.
+The best joke that was ever told could never have moved me as that
+perilous situation.  Not for my life, not even for the life of His
+Majesty, was I acting thus; nay, if a man had offered me ten thousand
+golden pieces to have recovered my serenity, the money would have been
+lost for ever.
+
+Well, the effect upon the Cossacks was amazing.  I have never had a
+doubt that the first of the band had already raised his sabre to thrust
+me through when this weird fit overtook me.  The wonder of it held his
+hand and left him powerless.  He stood there looking at me as though he
+had come suddenly upon a madman.  Possibly I laughed, as men will at
+times, with an air which is infectious, compelling others to take up
+the catch, and certainly depriving them of their anger.  Be that as it
+may, there were fellows laughing in that bedroom before I had done, and
+anon the whole company roared aloud with me.  Such a thing was like a
+sudden vision of life to a man whom death had held by both hands.  In a
+twinkling I had got my courage back, and what was but an ailment had
+become a stratagem.  If laughter could save the Emperor, then was I the
+man.  Soon I began to sing the "Ram, ram, ram, ram, plan, tire-lire ram
+plan," and shouted it with all my lungs and danced a step before them.
+They in their turn clapped me on the back with their sabres and cried
+for drink.
+
+"You will find it in the salle a manger," said I, speaking to one of
+them in French, and then, opening my mouth and making the sign of a man
+drinking, I caught the fellow by the arm and dragged him down the
+stairs.  The others followed like sheep that would go into a fold.  We
+were all drinking about the table in less than no time, and an hour had
+not run before the whole troop of them were as drunk as sailors at
+Toulon.
+
+I say they were drunk, but a man must have been in Russia to know how
+very drunk they were.
+
+This was no mere rollicking, no shouting of songs or bawling of
+catches, but right-down deep drinking, and upon that a stupor which
+bore a very good likeness to death.  I watched them tumbling to the
+floor one by one, and, spurning their bodies aside with my foot, I
+remembered His Majesty and went back to him.  He was still standing at
+the stairs head where I had left him, and Mademoiselle Kyra was still
+by his side.
+
+"Well," says he; and I told him at a breath.
+
+"There's an end of this until daybreak," said I.  "Your Majesty can go
+now."
+
+He did not speak, leaving it to the girl, who went slowly to the window
+and, opening it a little way, looked out across the field of snow.
+Then she shut the casement quickly and came back to us.
+
+"They are watching the house," she said quietly.  "It is as I thought.
+They know your Majesty is here, and are waiting for you."
+
+"Then let them find me instead," said I immediately, and, stepping up
+to the Emperor, I begged the loan of his cloak and cocked hat.  "You
+will find mine a little large, but they will serve, sire," said I.  "If
+I draw off the troop, well and good.  If not, your Majesty may yet find
+a way."
+
+He looked at me in his own way, as one whom danger amused rather than
+dismayed.
+
+"I will send a regiment of hussars to bring you back," he exclaimed,
+pinching my ear as he was wont to do when pleased.  Then he handed me
+his cloak and cocked hat and I donned them as though the joke were
+entirely to my liking.  For all that, I knew very well what I was
+doing, and I would not have valued my life at a lira's purchase when I
+left him at the stairs head and went down.
+
+Mademoiselle stood by his side then, and they were deep in talk.  I
+might have said that I was forgotten already, and that may have been
+true enough.  Men have died for Napoleon Bonaparte, knowing well that
+their very names would be unremembered when the sun rose again.  Others
+will imitate them, for such is the spirit his gifts of kingship have
+inspired.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+It was the dead of night when I went out, and not a sign of the old
+hag.  I believed then that she had betrayed us, and had I met her that
+would have been the last hour she had lived.  But, as I say, she had
+clean vanished, and the only lackey visible was dead asleep by the
+stove in the hall.  Very softly now I pushed open the outer doors and
+looked about me.  The spectacle was wonderfully beautiful, but as
+menacing as it was glorious.  A great full moon shone down upon a scene
+that should have stood in a magic land.  Earth and sky alike were aglow
+with the entrancing lights of winter made magnificent.  The cold was
+intense beyond belief: the frost made a diamond of every pebble the
+foot crushed.  And upon it all was the stillness of God's death.... the
+silence of a land which an Eastern winter had shrouded.
+
+Thus for the beauty of the scene.  The menace was no less remarkable.
+There, frosted already, were the corpses of the sentinels the Russians
+had murdered.  To reach the open I must step over the prone figures of
+brother Frenchmen and look into their staring eyes.  The shudder was
+still upon me when I heard a cry of savage triumph, and knew that the
+Cossacks were upon me.  The troop which Mademoiselle Kyra had seen from
+the window rode out of the shadows even as I crossed the threshold.
+They fell upon me as wolves upon a carcass, and no fowl was trussed as
+surely while a man could have counted twenty.
+
+
+VIII
+
+Imagine the exultation of these men, who believed that they had
+captured the greatest of Frenchmen, living or dead, and were carrying
+him to their general.
+
+The first transports passed, their sense of prudence returned to them,
+and with it a deference which should have won laughter from a log!  The
+Emperor of the French a prisoner in their hands!  Heaven above me, how
+they bowed and capered!  What antics they cut!  Never had a man such
+slaves at his feet.  I was set upon a horse immediately, and had a
+guard at the head and tail of him.  The officer saluted until his arm
+must have been weary.  He had caught the Emperor--what a night!
+
+Our way lay over the snows to the Cossack camp upon the far side.
+Behind me there shone the lights of the house I had quitted, bright
+stars beyond a frozen sea.  I knew that the next hour would find me in
+the Russian general's tent, and that my shrift must be short.  What
+mattered the regiment of hussars the Emperor was to send?  My body
+would be frozen on the snows before they could ride out.
+
+Upon this there fell an apathy difficult to understand.
+
+We had suffered so much during those terrible days--hunger and thirst,
+and blood and wounds--that any man might have opened his arms to death
+as to a friend.  And here was the end of it for me.  What mattered it?
+In a vision, I beheld the lights of my own France, the home which
+sheltered all dear to me, the land towards which my eyes had been
+lifted these many weeks.  Never again might I look upon that smiling
+country.  Night and the unknown were my portion.  There would be few to
+remember my name to-morrow.
+
+From such thoughts a reality most absurd awoke me.
+
+I have set down this narrative of events as I lived and knew them, and
+have kept nothing from you, that you may judge of things, not as we
+look for them, but as an unromantic destiny determines that they shall
+be.
+
+I say that I awoke with a start, believing myself to be upon a horse
+and at the very threshold of the Russian camp.  Depict my astonishment
+when, opening my eyes, I beheld again madame's salle a manger, the
+tables spread with meat and drink, the forms of the intoxicated
+Russians on the floor all about me, and above them the red coats of our
+own Hussars of the Guard!  For an instant I believed that the witch in
+ermine had cast a spell upon me, and that this was but a vision of her
+enchantment.  Then the merry laughter of my own comrades disillusioned
+me and I staggered, dizzy and dumbfounded, to my feet.
+
+"Name of a dog," I cried to them, "and what does this mean?"
+
+They answered me with a merriment which became a shout.
+
+"It means that the liquor was very good and that you got very drunk,"
+says their captain, clapping me on the shoulder ... and at him I stared
+all bewildered.
+
+"Drunk!" I cried.  "You say that I was drunk!"
+
+"Undoubtedly....  His Majesty told us to take care of you...."
+
+"Then he is not here?" I exclaimed in wonder.
+
+"He is already six leagues on the road to Wilna," was the answer.  A
+child might have put me over at that.  I clapped my hands to my fevered
+brow and began to believe them.  Drunk I had been ... but by drink had
+I saved the Emperor's life.
+
+And I had done him an injustice in my dream.  He has not forgotten, as
+I knew full well.
+
+
+IX
+
+You will see how it all happened, and will need no further words from
+me.
+
+Taking the Cossacks down to madame's salle a manger to keep them from
+the Emperor, I also had been overpowered by their cursed liquor, and
+had fallen under the table with the rest of them.  There I dreamed of
+Russian camps, and France, and death, and all the nonsense of it, and
+there I awoke to find our own Red Hussars in possession of the
+dwelling.  How they laughed at me!  Yet what music their laughter
+proved to be!
+
+As to old Madame Zchekofsky, I veritably believe that she played a
+double part that night with all a woman's cunning.  Desiring the
+Emperor's friendship, she encouraged his belief in her daughter's power
+of prophecy, at the same time trying to keep in with the Russians by
+informing them of our presence in the house at a moment when she
+believed we would already have left it.  Thus her anxiety and that
+disquiet I had observed with such misgiving.
+
+I saw her in Paris in the memorable year 1815, and her daughter was
+with her.  Naturally my nephew Leon desired to know so mysterious a
+personage, and I fancy she found his gifts of prophecy not less
+considerable than her own.  This, however, was long after the terrible
+weeks when so many thousands of brave Frenchmen left their bones upon
+the snows of Russia because the Emperor had willed it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+LITTLE PETROVKA
+
+I
+
+The Emperor was often in personal danger during the retreat from
+Moscow, but never more so, I think, than after the Battle of Krasnoe.
+
+You must depict us at this time as a rabble rather than an army.  There
+were few regiments save those of the Guard which maintained even a
+semblance of order.  Men fell out at a whim.  We had nothing upon
+either side of us but the frozen steppes and the woods in which the
+wolves howled.  Our own people had burned the villages through which we
+straggled towards a distant horizon of our salvation.  The road itself
+was black with the bodies of the dying and dead.  I shall not dwell
+upon such pitiful scenes, but recall only those which seem to me of
+interest to my fellow countrymen.
+
+Often have I been asked how the Emperor carried himself during these
+days, and that is a question which I have made some attempt already to
+answer.
+
+Chiefly he walked with the grenadiers.  There were occasions when he
+entered his famous travelling carriage, and passed some hours in it;
+but no one was more ready than he to share the hardships of the
+journey, and certainly none faced peril with a greater sang-froid.  How
+it came about that His Majesty escaped disaster, I cannot tell you.
+There were many occasions when a little courage upon the part of the
+Cossacks would have destroyed the hope of France for ever.  So often
+were we who guarded him but a palsied band of nondescripts, that I
+wonder to this day at that hesitation which allowed the greatest of our
+soldiers to slip through Russian hands.
+
+Let me give you an instance to show what I mean.
+
+It was the morning of November 25th.  We had passed a forlorn village
+some miles beyond Krasnoe.  The column was headed by a bevy of
+generals, few of whom were mounted.  Behind them there marched a
+miserable company of officers, all dragging themselves along painfully,
+and not a few of them having their feet frozen, and wrapped in rugs or
+bits of sheepskin.  The Emperor himself marched in the midst of the
+cavalry of the Guard.  He went on foot, and carried a baton.  His cloak
+was large and lined with fur, and upon his head he wore a dark red
+velvet cap with a trimming of black fox.  Prince Murat walked on his
+right-hand side, and on his left Prince Eugene, while behind him came
+the Marshals Berthier, Ney, Mortier, and Lefebvre, with others whose
+regiments had been almost annihilated in the recent battles.
+
+Behind these again were the officers and non-commissioned officers of
+the Guard.  There were seven or eight hundred of them walking in
+perfect silence, and carrying the eagles of their different regiments.
+The scene itself was an open plain glistening with frost, and often
+broken by those dismal clumps of pines with which we were so familiar.
+A village lay ahead of us, a ravine and a river upon our right hand.
+We knew that the Cossacks were sheltered by the distant woods, and that
+any moment might bring them down upon us.  And yet we went as stolidly
+as men who are marching from a field of victory.
+
+Is it to be wondered at that the Russians were perplexed by these
+tactics, and that even the boldest of them had no heart for a venture
+which would have destroyed the hope of France in a twinkling?
+
+This is not to tell you that they did not attack us.  Hardly had we
+come up to the outskirts of the village when we perceived a battery
+drawn up by the river and another before the very gates of the hamlet.
+We had no guns with us at the moment, and we stood there like sheep
+while the Russians pounded us and their shells decimated our tottering
+ranks.  Lame and helpless and weary, weakened by hunger and the perils
+of the march, who would have said that so pitiful a force could have
+withstood the assault even of five thousand brave men?  Yet, as I say,
+they were content to pound us with their artillery, and although we saw
+great masses of their cavalry about the village, never once did they
+charge us as we expected them to do.
+
+Presently our own guns came up, and we were able to meet the enemy on
+better terms.  Marshal Ney now put himself at the head of the
+chasseurs, and boldly charged the Cossacks to the left of the village.
+His troops suffered severely in this onset, and when he returned to us
+the frozen plain was dotted with the writhing forms of our countrymen
+who had been shot down.  These poor fellows had suffered so much during
+recent days that for the most part they died without a struggle.  Such
+as survived were left to the mercy of the Russians, for we were in no
+position to help them, and we had to suffer the mortifying spectacle of
+seeing the wounded stripped bare and left upon the snows by the fiends
+who came out of the woods.
+
+I thought surely that His Majesty was lost this day, and when I saw him
+standing in the very path of the shells, surrounded by no more than
+forty Fusiliers of the Guard, it seemed indeed to me that the end had
+come.  The Cossacks had but to charge and their booty would have been
+sure.  That they did not do so must be set down to those motives of
+prudence which animated their General Kutusoff to the end.  He knew
+that the Grand Army was perishing before his eyes, and that the
+elements would do what the Russians themselves had left undone.  When
+he retired that day we must have lost at least three thousand men, who
+were left in the hands of his butchers.
+
+But the Emperor was saved by such cowardice, and he slept that night in
+the village which Kutusoff's guns had failed to hold.
+
+
+II
+
+The morning broke clear and sunny, but hardly were we upon the road
+when the north wind began to blow and our sufferings to recommence.
+The Russians had drawn off for the time being, and we neither saw them
+nor heard their guns.  The troops themselves, no longer fearing an
+attack, marched in that disorder of which I have spoken.  Hardly a
+regiment could have been distinguished even by one familiar with our
+army.  We were but scattered groups of malcontents, and every man
+thought only of his own safety.
+
+I had not seen my nephew Leon during the battle, and was very glad to
+re-discover him not far from the bivouac.  He was marching with other
+officers of the Velites when I came up, and I perceived at once that he
+had made a captive.  The latter might, at the first glance, have been
+taken for a lad of seventeen, clad in stout riding-breeches, and
+wearing a tunic of rich fur.
+
+The bright eyes of the prisoner and the cheerful manner evidently won
+upon my comrades, and I was not very much astonished to discover
+presently that the prisoner was of the other sex, and to hear that she
+had been caught in the village that very morning, and herself had
+volunteered to show us the road to the Berezina.
+
+Such things happened almost every day while we were in Russia, and for
+a native woman to adopt the garb of a soldier was by no means an
+uncommon thing.  The only difference in this case was that the girl
+herself appeared to be well born, and beyond the station where such
+monkey tricks would be looked for.  It occurred to me at once that she
+might have been sent out to betray us, and I spoke of it to Leon before
+he had gone a league.
+
+"Where did you find her?" I asked him.
+
+He parried the question, as a young man would when he has found a
+companion to his liking.
+
+"She came out of the last house in the village just as we were marching
+past.  I wish I could understand their cursed lingo, mon oncle.  I
+think she comes from a place called Druobona, but am not very sure.  In
+either case, it does not matter," he added carelessly, "for I do not
+suppose she will go back there when we have done with her."
+
+This was said with a laugh which I did not like to hear, and I rebuked
+him sharply for his levity.
+
+"The girl is well born," said I, "and this is neither the place nor the
+time to think of such things.  Why do you allow her to go upon such an
+errand at all?  Are there not other guides?"
+
+He looked at me slyly.
+
+"None so pretty, mon oncle; and besides, a man can always make a woman
+understand.  She will get us very well to the Berezina, and there we
+shall send her back with a present."
+
+"Of horseflesh," said I; and then: "The whole thing is nonsense, and
+you are likely to pay a high price for her company.  Remember what I am
+saying."
+
+He promised to do so, but immediately linked his arm in hers and began
+to sing one of our old marching songs.  We must have gone another
+league before he told me that her home was in a village some few miles
+to the south of the route the army was taking, but really upon the old
+main road to the Berezina.
+
+"You and I will give them the slip at dusk," said he, "and take our
+luck again.  I will wager the girl's honesty against a hundred crowns.
+We can stop the night at her father's house and get food.  Do not look
+so displeased, mon oncle.  We will take twenty of our fellows to see
+that the Cossacks do not cut our throats, and we shall be half a day's
+march on the road to the river before the army has left the next
+bivouac."
+
+I did not like the idea of it, but when a man is making love to a
+pretty woman, and she has asked him to her house, there is an end of
+the argument.
+
+Petrovka, for such the men would call the girl, certainly disarmed
+suspicion by her frank airs and the merry laughter which lighted up her
+eyes.  She made a handsome boy enough, and it was good to see her
+dancing across the snow which so many trod with difficulty, and to hear
+the cheering words of encouragement she bestowed upon all who lagged
+behind.
+
+The men had come to believe that she was quite a mascot, and soon we
+must have had a hundred and fifty of the Guard about our party.  This
+was unexpected and not in accord with friend Leon's plan.  I believe it
+had been his secret hope that he and I should go alone to her father's
+house, but when the sun began to sink upon the horizon, and we left the
+main road for one which branched towards the south, the whole company
+followed us immediately.  Vain to tell them that our errand was
+private.  The time had passed when officers could have their will in
+such matters as this; and so it befell that exactly a hundred and fifty
+men set out to share Petrovka's hospitality, and were determined to
+enjoy it whatever the difficulties.
+
+
+III
+
+We went marching and singing, and utterly regardless of any perils that
+might await us upon the road.
+
+For that matter, we saw no Cossacks, and even our old friends the
+wolves were silent.
+
+The country itself had become less monotonous, and we soon found
+ourselves in a deep ravine, whose rugged cliffs were capped by the
+frozen pines.
+
+Here there was a wonderful suggestion of remoteness and solitude; but
+it occurred to me, nevertheless, that it might be the very spot for an
+ambush, and I insisted upon a halt until our vedettes had made their
+reports.  We even sent a man up to the heights above to be quite sure
+that the Cossacks were not camped in the thickets.  When these had
+reported that no living thing moved in all that drear place, we
+followed Petrovka again and began to think of supper.
+
+She had told us that it was just three leagues from the high road to
+her father's house, but we must have marched at least five before we
+came, without warning, upon a miserable village, the outstanding
+feature of which was the low and straggling farmhouse with a mighty
+barn at the southern end of it.  Of a seigneur's habitation there was
+no sign whatever, and I found it difficult to believe that Petrovka's
+father could inhabit such a shabby dwelling as that to which she now
+led us.  When we asked her if it were indeed her home, she, to our
+great astonishment, answered us in French, and replied that it was not.
+
+"My father lives many, many leagues from here," she said, and laughed
+at the words.  "This is the house of the moujik Serges.  He was one of
+my father's servants, and he will feed you, my lords."  And this she
+said with so pretty a grace that our anger was mollified in a moment.
+
+"Why did you pretend not to speak French?" I asked her next.
+
+She shook her head and said that she did not know.
+
+"You make me laugh so much when you talk Russian," she said.  I believe
+that to have been true.
+
+Nevertheless, I was not easy.  We had come upon a false errand, and it
+remained to be seen what was the end of it.
+
+"Let every man look to his powder," said I to Leon, as we entered the
+precincts of the farm.  "The devil and a woman are never far apart;
+mind that we have not caught the pair of them."
+
+He retorted that it did not very much matter either way.  Whatever
+befell us at the farm could be no worse than the peril of the high road
+and of such a bitter night as this.
+
+Not only was it black and dark by this time, but the north wind blew
+intolerably, and our very bones seemed shrunken.
+
+You will imagine, therefore, that the baying of the hounds about the
+farm was as music to us; and you can depict us beating heavily upon the
+farmer's door, while Petrovka cried aloud in Russian that we were
+friends.
+
+This settled the matter, and an old and grizzled peasant appeared
+immediately, and stood bowing on the threshold.  I disliked the look of
+him from the first, and shall always remember the hawk-like eyes which
+he turned upon our company.  Yet what had we to fear from the handful
+of serfs who now gathered about him--we, a hundred and fifty men of the
+Guard, with our muskets in our hands?
+
+And was there not Petrovka, with her laughing eyes--Petrovka, who told
+the old man that he would be paid for all that we had--Petrovka, who
+petted him and pulled his long beard as though she loved every hair of
+it.  She stood as our hostage, and she knew it--the pretty little girl.
+
+Well, we soon discovered that the kitchen of the farm would accommodate
+no more than the officers of the company, and it behoved the others to
+seek the shelter of the barn.  This they did with a very good grace,
+for it was a substantial edifice, with a monstrous fireplace at one end
+and a well-stacked granary at the other.  Soon there were flames
+roaring up the ancient chimney, a babel of talk, and the going to and
+fro of men who saw themselves supping handsomely for the first time for
+many a day.  We, meanwhile, were ensconced in the farmer's kitchen,
+with nearly the half of an ox roasting in his gigantic oven and an
+aroma of well-warmed wine which did one good to smell.
+
+The evening promised to be the most comfortable we had enjoyed since we
+left Moscow--so little did we foresee what lay beyond our present
+content.
+
+
+IV
+
+There were a good many bedrooms in the farmer's house, and some of
+these were very properly given up to the officers.
+
+I shared a room with Leon, whose window immediately overlooked the barn
+wherein our men were still enjoying the unexpected carousal.
+
+Mademoiselle Petrovka, in her turn, said that she would sleep with the
+girls of the house, and the last I saw of her before retiring was at
+the moment when Master Leon blew out the candle for the purpose of
+wishing her good-night.  Escaping from his embrace, she climbed the
+narrow staircase and shut the door at the head of it upon us, while we,
+amazed to discover beds, made haste to enjoy so unexpected a luxury.
+
+Never before in my life, I swear, did I know the meaning of good
+blankets as I learned it that bitter night, when the north wind swept
+the dismal plain and the pines were swaying in a dirge of death.  For
+that matter, I do not think that my nephew and myself could wholly
+appreciate the reality of our good fortune, and I lay for some time
+beneath the heavy _Steppdecke_ wondering if we had not dreamt the whole
+of it.  Such warmth and comfort were not to be imagined, and we found
+it almost impossible to believe that thousands of our comrades were
+then shivering and suffering upon the great high road, and many of
+them, I doubt not, falling to the terrible sleep from which no day
+should wake them.
+
+We, on the contrary, might have been the children of this hospitable
+house.  Well fed and warmed by wine, we fell into so profound a sleep
+anon that nothing but the terrible tragedy which ensued could have
+wakened us.  Alas! that it was so very terrible!  I hardly know how to
+tell you of it.
+
+Some say that it was nearly four in the morning when the first alarm
+arose.  I cannot be sure about so trivial a circumstance, nor is it of
+any interest.  In my sleep it seemed to me that men were shouting about
+the house, while a great flame of crimson light burned my eyes and
+forbade me to open them.  A man has the same sensation when he tries to
+look at the sun at noon, and it may be answered that he is a fool to do
+anything of the kind.  So, in my own case, I did not open my eyes for a
+long time, and not until Leon's strong hand dragged me from the bed did
+I understand what was happening.
+
+"Wake up, mon oncle!" says he in a sharper voice than ordinary.  "Don't
+you see that the place is afire?"
+
+It was a word to arouse any man, and I staggered up when I heard it,
+rubbing my eyes and trying to understand him.
+
+"How?" cried I.  "The farm afire?  Why, then, did you not wake me
+before?"
+
+"I have been trying to do so for the last five minutes, but you sleep
+like a Gascon, mon oncle.  Get your clothes on and follow me.  There
+will not be a man of them alive if we don't make haste."
+
+With this he ran down the stairs, and left me groping in the fitful
+light for my tunic and the heavy sable coat which I had brought out of
+Russia.
+
+It was clear by this time that the fire had begun in the barn which
+harboured so many of our men, and that it had not yet reached the
+buildings we occupied.  For all that, it promised to be a terrible
+conflagration, and my ears were assailed already by the woeful screams
+of the wretched company, themselves waking to the peril.  What kept the
+poor fellows in the barn, I knew no more than the dead.  I could see
+two great doors opening upon the yard, and they were wide enough to let
+a wagon go through.  Yet no one unbarred them, and all the time flames
+and smoke were pouring from the thatch above, and the shrieks of the
+imprisoned growing louder.  This perplexed me beyond words, and it was
+not until I had shaken the heavy sleep from my eyes that the thought of
+treachery occurred to me, and I began to understand much that had
+happened.
+
+The monster of a farmer who had lured us here--he had done it, I said,
+and God knows, if I had had my hand about his throat at the moment, I
+would have strangled the life out of him.
+
+Well, I bounded down the stairs at the thought, and found myself
+immediately amid my brother officers, who were striving like madmen to
+set their compatriots free.  Unable to hear a word that was spoken, I
+nevertheless understood by their gestures that the main gates of the
+barn had been bolted and barred, and that, until they could be
+unlocked, the only chance for our fellows was the narrow window at the
+southern end.  For this I now made, Leon at my side, and others as
+ready to risk their lives in the face of such a disaster.
+
+Let me tell you that the roar of the conflagration was like that of a
+sea beating angrily upon a barren shore.  Commingled with it were the
+sounds of rending woodwork and the screams of men already burning in
+the flames; while all was made worse by the intolerable north wind
+which swept about the building and howled dismally beneath the frozen
+eaves.
+
+This paralysed the faculties, so that even the bravest found his limbs
+benumbed and his brain bewildered.  No company of raw recruits could
+have worked to less purpose--some crying for hatchets, some vainly for
+water, yet all incapable of rendering any useful aid, and all equally
+terrified by the spectacle they beheld.  Alas! to see those pitiful
+faces at the window of the barn above; to watch the flames creeping
+about them; to behold them fall one by one into the deadly furnace
+behind them; and to know that they were Frenchmen and brethren!  Such
+was the price of the brief respite we had enjoyed; such was the
+hospitality that the woman Petrovka had shown us.
+
+Someone got a ladder about this time, and others found axes in the
+wood-house of the farm.  I was among the latter, and I remember with
+what fury our little party attacked the great front gates and tried to
+force an entrance.  Could we but burst the bolt, our comrades were free
+in a twinkling; and you may imagine how we went at it--the blows which
+we struck, and the curses we uttered.
+
+Minute by minute now the flames were creeping toward this end of the
+barn.  We had no need of lanterns; the snow was blood-red, and the very
+wood stood out as though the sun were setting and the night not yet
+begun.  Had we any longer a doubt that treachery had fired the barn,
+the disappearance of the Russians themselves would have clenched the
+argument.  Not a peasant did we see, not a man or woman of those who
+had served us last night and welcomed us with such smiling faces.  The
+whole farm had become a desert, and, be sure, that of them all Petrovka
+had been the first to go.
+
+Such was my opinion for a long time, and it endured until, to my great
+astonishment, I perceived her at Leon's side, and saw that he was in
+close talk with her.  Good God! that a man could have argued with such
+a woman when his comrades were perishing--that he did not strike her
+down where she stood!  Any other but Leon would have done so; yet, when
+was the day that a woman's eyes could not win him?
+
+All this went through my head in a flash as I hewed at the giant doors
+and called upon my comrades to redouble their efforts.  The shrieks
+within the building were now most dreadful to hear.  None but a man of
+iron could have remained deaf to the piercing cries which marked the
+approach of the fire and told us that our task must be impotent.  None
+the less, we worked with a vigour unimaginable, while the heat became
+choking, and showers of glowing sparks rained down upon us.  The very
+snow was melted far away from the barn by this time; the sky had turned
+blood red; the branches of the trees were burning.  The great door
+alone stood between our comrades and salvation.
+
+In the end we beat this in, and an aperture was made.  Through that we
+dragged some thirty men and carried them quickly to the farm.  Poor
+fellows, they were terribly burned, and their flesh fell from their
+bones as we lifted them.  What lay beyond in that holocaust I did not
+dare to inquire.  The barn was now but a roaring furnace; the cries had
+ceased; the moaning of the fire and the night wind alone remained.
+
+
+V
+
+I have told you that we laid our stricken comrades in the farmhouse and
+there did what we could for them.  So great was their need that the
+immediate necessity of relieving it put everything else into the shade,
+and it was not until we had dressed their wounds and done our best to
+make them comfortable that I so much as remembered the woman Petrovka.
+Perhaps I should not have thought of her even then but for the fact
+that a sudden clamour discovered her in the room, and, turning about, I
+witnessed a violent altercation between her and one of the sick, who
+raised himself up from the mattress where they had laid him, and cried
+out that she had fired the barn.
+
+"The she-devil!" he yelled in his frenzy.  "I saw her do it, comrades;
+I swear she was the woman!"
+
+Such an accusation naturally arrested the attention of everyone in the
+room.  Leon himself had gone out again with others to prevent the fire
+from spreading to the neighbouring buildings, and there was no one
+there but myself who knew anything of Petrovka.  The effect of the
+accusation upon the sick and the hale was almost magical.  They did not
+ask for the man's proof, nor seek to question him, but, seizing the
+girl by the arm, they would have struck her down there and then had I
+not intervened.
+
+"Come, come," said I; "we must do nothing in haste," for though I had
+been willing enough an hour ago to have acted upon an impulse, the heat
+of passion had passed and a sense of justice prevailed.
+
+If this girl had indeed fired the barn, I would not lift a hand to save
+her; but we had only the chasseur's word for it, and he was already far
+gone in delirium.  So it seemed to me that we owed her at least the
+formality of a trial, and, rushing in before those who held her, I
+commanded them to hear me.
+
+"Gentlemen," said I, "this woman is a Russian and well born.  It is
+difficult to believe that she would have done so foul a thing.  If she
+be guilty she must pay the penalty, but let us hear her first.  You
+will all admit the justice of that.  Let her be tried and put to the
+proof, but do not do anything of which you may repent to-morrow."
+
+They heard me with impatience.  The child herself clung to me, frantic
+with terror, her eyes imploring me and her body trembling with fear.
+Her words were almost incoherent, but nevertheless they denied the
+truth of the charge vehemently and implored me for God's sake to save
+her.  So much I do not believe I could have done but for Leon, who
+entered the room at the moment, and, perceiving the situation, leaped
+towards her, drawing his sword as he did so.
+
+"By the God in heaven," cried he, "I will cut down any man who lays a
+finger on her."  And it needed but a glance at him to see that he meant
+every word of it.
+
+Such determination was not without its effect.  There were both
+officers and troopers in the room, but I was the senior in command, and
+I never lost sight of the fact for a moment.
+
+"Gentlemen," said I, "name three of you to act with me as judges in
+this matter, and I promise you satisfaction.  If the woman be guilty
+she shall be hanged.  Come now--is not this a proper course to take?
+Some of you will have daughters of your own.  Do not forget them at
+such a moment as this."
+
+They assented to the proposition, though I could see that they were far
+from being appeased.  There was a hurried consultation among them, and
+then the intimation that they had chosen Captains Legard and Fournier,
+of the fusiliers, and Major Duhesne, of the _chasseurs a cheval_, to
+act with my nephew and myself.  The major stood as spokesman for the
+others, and first addressed the company.
+
+"It must be here in this room, gentlemen," he said; "the witness cannot
+be moved; we will try the woman here."  And that was a claim none could
+contest.
+
+I shall never forget the scene which now ensued, nor the grim drama we
+played in that mean farmhouse during the next ten minutes.  All about
+us were the tumbled mattresses and the stricken forms of the men who
+had been scorched by the flames.  Common rushlights and miserable
+lanterns afforded the only illumination that we had.  The trial was
+held about the stove, whereby there lay the sick man who had denounced
+Petrovka.  She herself was set in a circle amid her judges, while the
+man was commanded by me to repeat the accusation he had made.  He did
+so with a restraint which astonished me when I remembered his
+sufferings.  Raising himself up in bed, he turned his haggard eyes upon
+the woman and told us what he knew.
+
+"I was asleep in the little loft of the barn," he said; "then I heard a
+sound of someone moving in the straw about me.  Thinking it was one of
+our men, I asked him what he did there; but there was no answer, and
+for a little while nobody stirred.  Presently I heard a crackling sound
+and smelt fire, and at that I looked up and saw the thatch was ablaze.
+Then there came light in the place, and I saw the woman.  She was
+creeping down the ladder, but I recognised her all the same.  She
+stands there, messieurs, and she knows that it is true."
+
+A deep cry of anger escaped the auditors when the man had done.
+Obviously he did not lie, and his evidence staggered even me.  Petrovka
+herself heard him with a wonder no art could have aped, and her very
+attitude was an appeal to reason where I was concerned.
+
+Upon my comrades its effect was far otherwise.  There were shouts of "a
+mort!" from every quarter of the room.  Some said, "Let her speak!"
+others were for not hearing her at all.  My loud word of command alone
+saved her from the imminence of death.
+
+"Gentlemen," said I, "this story is all very well, but it is possible
+that this man may be mistaken.  What confirmation have you of the
+story?  Let the girl speak for herself; I see she is ready."
+
+I turned to Petrovka, and was astonished at her new demeanour.  She
+appeared to have recovered her composure altogether.  Her face was pale
+but wonderfully beautiful.  She had removed her cap, and her almost
+golden hair fell upon her shoulders in a disorder pretty to see.
+Looking from one to the other of us, she declared her innocence.
+
+"Frenchmen," she said, "I was never in the loft of the barn at all.  My
+father is a Russian noble--do we stoop to such crimes as this?  I am a
+woman, and I have a woman's heart; why do you accuse me of such
+wickedness?"
+
+It was a proud defiance, but it availed her nothing.  No one believed
+her, and all in the room, save Leon and myself, desired her death.  In
+vain I put it to them that some other woman from the farm might have
+done the deed.  They would hear nothing, and presently they began to
+cry "Vote--vote!" and instantly the others held up their hands and
+proclaimed her guilty.
+
+Now this was a terrible moment for me, and not the less terrible to my
+nephew.  Hurriedly we drew apart and began to ask each other what could
+be done.  It was plain that we had the whole company against us, and at
+the best we could but hope to temporise.  The one thing to do was to
+save the child from a vengeance which certainly would not be tempered
+by mercy, and in the hope of this I now addressed myself to the other
+judges.
+
+"The girl is well born, as you can see," said I; "it is idle to suppose
+she has done such a thing.  Beware that you do not pay heavily for your
+haste.  We shall overtake the army in the morning, and the matter can
+be referred to head-quarters.  You would be much wiser to let it go
+there.  Do you desire the girl's death?  I cannot believe it,
+gentlemen."
+
+It was all unavailing.
+
+"We have judged her," said the major, "and she is plainly guilty.  My
+determination is to hang her without ceremony, and that," he said,
+turning to his companions, "is the vote of the majority."
+
+Now Leon had listened to this moment without protest, but these words
+were too much for him.  Catching Petrovka suddenly by the arm, he drew
+her close to him, and whipped his sword from his scabbard as one who
+would brook no denial.
+
+"By God," said he, "you shall do nothing of the kind!"
+
+It was a brave deed, and would to God it could have saved her.
+Unhappily such heroism as this is well enough in a story, but of little
+avail when the realities of life are at stake.  There were twenty men
+atop of my nephew before another word could be uttered, and dragging
+Petrovka from his arms, they carried her triumphantly from the room.
+
+She did not utter a single cry.  I thought there was a smile upon her
+face, but it was the look of a woman who knows how to suffer.
+
+
+VI
+
+Dawn was just breaking in a sullen sky at this time.  The wind had
+fallen somewhat, and it was snowing heavily.  I remember the scene very
+well--and, in truth, who could forget it?  There to the right were the
+ruins of the barn; behind us the low buildings of the farm; before us
+the orchard of the house and the white snow-fields beyond it.
+
+Without a word said, and acting upon a common impulse, the
+assassins--for such I must now call them--led Petrovka towards a beech
+tree by the roadside, and clamoured loudly for a rope.  Such a lust for
+a woman's death is rare among soldiers, and it needed the tragedy of
+the night to have provoked it.
+
+What could we do?  There was still the opportunity of parley, and we
+did not neglect it.  They had not found a rope readily, and while they
+were still seeking it I addressed myself to Major Duhesne, and again
+implored him to remember what he was doing.
+
+"The Emperor," said I, "will never forgive you if this woman is proved
+to be innocent."
+
+I might as well have addressed myself to the wall of the house.  His
+rejoinder was such as I might have expected.  The woman had fired the
+barn, he said; there was evidence of that fact.  This was just the kind
+of deed His Majesty punished without mercy.  Why should his officers be
+less zealous?
+
+All of which was said with the air of a man absolutely set upon a
+purpose, and acting under a strong sense of duty.  The others were not
+less determined, and, unhappily, they had now found a rope, and carried
+it triumphantly to the beech tree I have named.  The scene at this
+moment was very terrible to look upon: the figure of the girl pathetic
+beyond imagination, and the savagery of her enemies indescribable.  It
+was revolting to hear the shouts of anger when the executioners
+attempted to throw the cord across a branch of the tree and failed to
+do so.  I could not have believed that Frenchmen would have acted so.
+
+Now, for the second time, was this brutal murder delayed while a ladder
+must be sent for.  In this I perceived the hand of God, and my heart
+beat fast while the moments of respite were numbered.  Would we yet
+save her?  Might we dare to hope?  A shout from the woods near by
+answered me.  As God is my witness, the Cossacks were upon us.  They
+rode from the thicket like a whirlwind; their scimitars whistled
+through the air with a sound of rushing winds.
+
+What a turn-about that was!  No cries of savage exultation now; no talk
+of justice and penalty--nothing but a mad race for the shelter of the
+farm and all the hurly-burly of a wild pursuit.  There before my very
+eyes I saw Frenchmen cleaved to the brisket; saw the heads of comrades
+roll upon the snow, and heard the screams of those whom the glittering
+steel cut down.  The thunder of hoofs upon the hard snow rang out like
+weird music of an Eastern dawn.  The breath of horses and men froze on
+the still air.  The ground was black already with the figures of the
+dead.
+
+And what of ourselves meanwhile?  Incredible, a man would say, that we
+could stand there, my nephew and I, and escape the swords of these
+terrible Asiatics.  Yet such was the case.
+
+Our very desire to save Petrovka had been the instrument of this
+miracle.  No sooner had the others run for the farm than we were at her
+side, bidding her be of good cheer and seeking still to protect her.
+Of such protection, however, she had now no need.  The men who came
+from the woods were her friends; they knew her.  The words which passed
+between the captain and herself were those which commanded our safety.
+A proud little lady she was in that moment, God knows!  The laughter
+had come back to her eyes.
+
+"I never believed that they would kill me," she said to Leon.
+
+Who would have wished to destroy such a fine illusion?  Not I, for a
+truth, when every Frenchman in the farm was now dead or a prisoner of
+the Tartars, who caroused where yesterday we had made merry.
+
+
+VII
+
+We did not return to the farm, nor have any further word with the
+Russians.  Petrovka had recovered all her wits by this time, and she
+made it plain to us that such a course might be dangerous.
+
+"I will do what I can for your friends," she said, "and afterwards I
+shall return to my father's house.  You, meanwhile, go at once to
+Wilna, and say nothing of what you have seen.  That must be a point of
+honour between us, messieurs.  I give you your lives, and you pay me by
+your silence.  God speed; and do not forget little Petrovka."
+
+We swore that we would never do so.  She led us to the stables
+thereafter, and so we found our horses.  A word to the Cossack at the
+gate made everything easy for us; and be sure that Petrovka took good
+care to see that food and wine for the journey were found for us.  It
+must have been ten of the day when we quitted the farm at last and
+waved a long farewell to the mistress of this singular adventure.
+
+"A wonderful little woman," said Leon, as we turned our heads at
+length.  "To think that she knew all the time who burned us out!"
+
+"She did know!" I cried, looking at him with astonishment.
+
+"Certainly; she has just told me.  It was Anna, the farmer's daughter.
+Petrovka meant to save her.  Can you beat that for loyalty?"
+
+I could make no reply.  Woman's courage is always very wonderful.  What
+man will pretend to understand it?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE AFFAIR AT THE POST-HOUSE
+
+I
+
+There was very little order kept among us after the Battle of Krasnoe,
+and you may depict us as a scattered host going covertly in fear of the
+Cossacks.
+
+Men made little attempt to keep up with their regiments.  The Chasseurs
+and Fusiliers of the Guard, with whom the Emperor marched, were,
+perhaps, the exception; but the rest of us went as we could, thinking
+more of food and shelter than of our own safety, and hardened to any
+feelings of pity.
+
+The latter is a bold admission to make, but few of those who marched
+from Moscow will contest it.  When comrades are perishing about you
+every day, when your milestones are the bodies of the frozen dead, the
+ultimate terror becomes the lesser thing and all the more brutal
+instincts are awakened.  We could not help those who fell; we pushed
+on, deaf to their appeals.  Let any man lag for an hour in this bitter
+cold, and he would sleep as they slept--so many thousands upon the
+great white highway.
+
+Sometimes it befell that we did not see our regiment for many days
+together.  This, I remember, happened to my nephew Leon and myself as
+we drew near the Berezina.
+
+The army heard many disquieting stories at this time, and most of them
+had to do with the passage of the famous river.
+
+The timorous agreed that the Russians could not lose so favourable an
+opportunity of falling upon our disorganised units, and that he would
+be a lucky man who made the passage of the stream in safety.
+
+Others comforted us with the assurance that our engineers would not
+fail us in this emergency, and were all ready at the Berezina to
+strengthen and to guard the ancient bridge.  The tales were
+contradictory, and we knew not which to believe.  The river had become
+our Rubicon, and we imagined that if we recrossed it the victory was
+won.
+
+This was the condition of affairs on the morning of November 25th, when
+Leon and I rode a little way with a detachment of some thirty
+_pontonniers_ who were on their way to the Berezina.
+
+I remember well that the captain of the little company warned us to
+look well after our horses; "for," said he, "the Emperor has given
+instructions that all the best are to be taken for the use of the
+artillery and the wounded."  The Imperial Guard was then some five
+miles ahead of us, and we had no intention of overtaking it.  To that
+end we soon parted company with the _pontonniers_, and stopped for an
+hour about midday in what had been a farmhouse upon the high road.
+There we cooked a little of the rice we carried in our saddlebags, and
+drank of the brandy which I had carried out of Smolensk.
+
+The repast gave us courage, and we rode on in better spirit afterwards.
+Alas, that such a mood turned too swiftly to one of despair, when we
+found that we had lost the road and that the bodies of dead and dying
+Frenchmen indicated no longer the route to the Berezina.
+
+
+II
+
+We made this discovery about three o'clock of the afternoon.
+
+The day was already done, and a great red sun sank into a billow of
+mist.
+
+We saw nothing about us but vast fields of snow, gone crimson in the
+vanishing light, and woods which would tell no story but that of wolves.
+
+A profound silence reigned in this frozen wilderness.  We did not hear
+so much as the chime of a distant church bell, nor perceive a single
+human being upon all that waste.  Yet it did not appear to us by the
+compass that we could be very far from the road to Bobr, through which
+the Emperor must pass; nor had we any misgivings that we should
+ultimately come to the banks of the Berezina if we held upon our course.
+
+"There are no Cossacks here," says Leon, "and there is not much
+advantage got by company.  We have a little food and brandy, and may as
+well keep it to ourselves.  Come on, mon oncle.  Let us try to believe
+that the spires of Notre Dame are to be seen from yonder road, and all
+the rest will be easy."
+
+He had grown very thin these later days, my poor Leon, and was but a
+spectre of his former self.  I thought of the dashing officer who had
+cut so brave a figure in Moscow, and heaved a sigh at all that had
+befallen us since.  The word "woman" came no longer to his lips, as
+formerly, and I believe he would have bartered the whole sex for a loaf
+of bread and a bottle of good French wine.  Who would have had the
+heart to remind him how many thousand leagues we were from that Paris
+for which he longed so ardently?
+
+"Imagine what you please," said I, "but throw in a comfortable
+farmhouse and a stove to sleep by, and I am your man.  It is going to
+snow again, nephew, and a man may as well be in the Arctic wastes as
+upon this barren plain.  We were wrong to leave the others; there is
+safety in numbers, and God knows what is about to befall us.  Ah, my
+dear nephew, what would I not give for such a bed and such a supper as
+we had at the farm at Druobona!"
+
+He sighed at the memory both of little Petrovka and of that night of
+adventure.
+
+We had now approached the woods, and presently we found ourselves in
+the depths of a forest which must have been rarely trodden by man.  The
+snow had drifted into vast heaps here, and encircled the trees in great
+mounds which would have engulfed a wagon.  The stillness of it all was
+that of winter at her zenith.  The wind had fallen, and in the distance
+we heard the howling of wolves.  All this prepared us but little for
+the surprise which overtook us presently, when three mounted Cossacks
+suddenly appeared in our path and threatened us in guttural tones of
+which we did not understand a single word.
+
+Of course, we had drawn rein directly the Russians appeared, and for my
+part I was quite prepared to surrender to them.  These roving bands
+rarely numbered less than a squadron, and it was idle to believe that
+two armed men could oppose a hundred.  The alternatives were death on
+the spot, or that intolerable suffering in a Russian prison of which we
+had heard such evil reports.  I whispered as much to Leon, but got
+nothing from him but a guffaw in return.
+
+"Va-t'en!" said he.  "There are only three of them, mon oncle.  Do you
+not see how they hesitate?"
+
+I perceived it to be true, and drew a pistol from my holster.  The
+Russians carried lances, but were in no hurry to descend upon us.
+Either they looked for assistance in the vicinity or deemed their
+advantage in numbers insufficient.  What they would have done if we had
+remained where we were I do not pretend to tell you; but before I could
+say another word Master Leon clapped spurs to his horse, and, riding up
+to the leader, he blew out his brains before a man could have counted
+two.
+
+"A moi, mon oncle!" he cried; and be sure I was at his side
+immediately.  Unhappily, my own pistol was badly aimed, and did no more
+damage than to blow the feather from the busby of the ruffian who now
+confronted me.  In an instant he had thrust at me with his lance, and I
+felt the cold steel cut the sinews of my arm.
+
+Now I wheeled my horse about, and, despite the wound, I drew my sword
+and aimed at the fellow.  He answered me by a loud cry which brought
+three of his fellows from the wood, and so set five of them against our
+two.  These odds were unexpected, and seemed to say that our onset had
+been very foolish.  Still, there we were, and we must make the best of
+such folly as we had shown.  I could do no better with my fellow than
+to slash his arm off at a single stroke; but Leon cut the second of the
+three clean out of the saddle, and found himself attacked by the others
+who had come from the wood.
+
+I could imagine that, from a spectator's point of view, this fight
+would have been as pretty a thing as he could wish to see.
+
+There were we two riding up and down the glade with three burly
+Cossacks at our heels, and devil of a wall against which we might set
+our backs.
+
+To make matters worse, my own horse stumbled heavily over the solid
+roots of a magnificent beech tree, and anon I found myself on the
+ground, with a couple of Russians atop of me.  They would have done for
+me but for an ally as unexpected as his appearance was grotesque.  This
+man had been lying, seemingly dead, at the foot of the tree by which I
+fell.  He was one of our _chasseurs a pied_, and he seemed swathed from
+head to foot in fur.  What had wakened him, whether a kick from a horse
+or the delirium of sickness, I cannot tell you, but, staggering to his
+feet, he ran at the Russians with his bayonet, and had pinned one to
+the snow almost before I was aware of his presence.  The other waited
+for no such attention, but, setting his horse at a gallop, rode madly
+from the wood.
+
+We had now accounted for five of the Russians--no mean achievement for
+men in such a condition.  The poor fellow who had assisted us we
+discovered to be in a woeful state--his feet frost-bitten and two of
+the fingers of his left hand missing.  He hardly seemed to know what he
+had done for us, but, sinking at the foot of the tree, he raved
+incoherently of his home at Chalons, and of his wife and children
+awaiting him there.  We gave him some of the brandy, and tried to lift
+him upon my nephew's horse, but it was of no good, and presently he
+appeared to regain his senses and to be aware both of his situation and
+of our own.
+
+"You cannot help me, my friends," said he.  "The road is yonder; take
+it while you may.  I am done for."
+
+And upon this he threw back his head and seemed to die instantly.
+
+This was a very sad thing to see, and sent us from the place in a worse
+spirit than I had hoped.  My own wound had now begun to trouble me, and
+I discovered that the lance had penetrated the flesh below the
+shoulder, and left a gaping wound which in another climate might have
+proved troublesome.  As it was, we bound it up stoutly with a piece
+torn from my tattered shirt, and, the darkness already gathering, and
+the snow beginning to fall, we prepared to leave the wood in the
+direction which the poor chasseur had indicated to us.
+
+
+III
+
+I say that we prepared to leave the wood, but before we did so the idea
+came to me to take with us the capes and the busbies of the Cossacks we
+had slain, in the hope that they would be of service to us in so
+dangerous a place.  Bidding my nephew imitate me, I stripped the fellow
+I had killed, and invited Leon to do the same to the other.
+
+"The woods are full of these fellows," said I, "and who knows what this
+device may do for us?  A la guerre comme a la guerre.  Let us try our
+luck under the new colours, for it has been bad enough under the old."
+
+He laughed in reply, for my new appearance amused him.
+
+"Upon my word, you would make an excellent Tartar, mon oncle," says he;
+and whether that were meant to be a compliment or a reproach upon my
+shaggy appearance, I did not attempt to discover.  The night had come
+down, and the moments were precious.  It was no time for a trifler's
+argument, and I pushed on in silence.
+
+The forest became more open as we proceeded, and I now perceived that
+the avenue must be a high road, so orderly were the groves of beeches
+which bordered it.
+
+From time to time we heard the howling of wolves, and more than one
+watch-fire denoted the presence of the Russians.  The prudence of the
+step we had taken in assuming the garb of the Cossacks was now
+justified by the event.  We came face to face with a dozen of these
+barbarians not a mile from the scene of the strife, and they passed us
+without drawing rein, evidently being set upon a purpose of their own.
+Leon was much amused by this, and swore that he would swim the Berezina
+in the same clothes.
+
+"Chasseurs are out of fashion," said he, "and hussars have become very
+cheap.  I will go to the Tuileries as a Cossack, mon oncle, and Paris
+will applaud me."
+
+I reminded him that Paris was yet a long way off, and that the dreaded
+river still lay between us and freedom.  Like so many of my fellows who
+deluded themselves with that belief, I thought that we had but to cross
+the Berezina to leave our troubles behind us; nor could I foresee in
+any way what we must suffer before we reached the bridge at Kovno.
+
+This, however, is to anticipate.  Behold us for the moment pressing on
+through the darkness of the forest, often losing the road because of
+the blackness of the night, and always alert in the presence of our
+enemies.  That there were Cossacks all about us we knew full well, and
+when we emerged from the woods at last we perceived a whole regiment of
+them riding southward at a gallop.
+
+This seemed to say that our own army lay in that direction.  Undeterred
+by the presence of the Cossacks, we kept upon our course, and presently
+we heard the barking of watchdogs, and espied the lights of a village.
+A little farther on yet, and the rising moon showed us familiar scenes.
+There were dead and dying here, the bones of horses and the debris of
+an army that had passed.  I perceived immediately that we had regained
+the high road, and, pressing on to the village, we came up to a
+considerable post-house, whose cheerful lights shone out warmly upon
+the snow, while the windows revealed the uniforms of Frenchmen.
+
+Now, this was a pleasant happening, and it is droll to recall what
+followed upon it.  We had thought to grasp our comrades by the hand,
+and to change with them the news of yesterday and to-day; but hardly
+had we knocked at the door of the post-house when as great a panic
+overtook the men within as any I had witnessed since we quitted Moscow.
+With a loud cry of "The Cossacks!" our fellow-countrymen bolted
+headlong by a door at the rear of the building, and when we entered
+there remained but two or three frightened figures huddled about the
+stove at the far end of the spacious room.
+
+"Name of a dog," says Leon, "I shall play at the Comedie Francaise yet."
+
+And there he stood, shaking himself like a bear and laughing still at
+my appearance and his own.
+
+This was all very well, but, fearing that the affair might have graver
+consequences, I went to the door and began to halloo after our
+comrades.  It was all in vain; they were already at the far end of the
+village, and I doubt not that they thought it but a ruse to entrap them.
+
+Meanwhile, the few Russians within the room had come up to Leon and
+were staring at him curiously.  Very sternly he commanded them to
+return to their places, and, bolting the doors, he pointed to the
+table, upon which a great cauldron of soup was steaming.
+
+"The spoils to the victors," says he; and, indeed, that was no time for
+ceremony.  I was just about to tell him as much, when a voice from the
+far end of the apartment arrested our attention, and, turning about, we
+saw the very last person in all Russia we would have looked for that
+night.
+
+"Mademoiselle Valerie, by all that is holy!" cries Leon; and in a
+twinkling he had caught her in his arms and was almost tearing the robe
+from her back.
+
+"What the devil are you doing here, little witch?" he asked her.
+
+She told him in a word.
+
+"The Emperor is at Bobr.  He is a little tired of me, mon ami, so you
+see I waited for you."
+
+"The same Valerie, upon my soul.  You have quarrelled with His Majesty!
+There could be no better news.  I salute you, fair Imperatrice, and, by
+St. Christopher, I will have supper with you."
+
+She came up to me now, and greeted me very prettily.  After all, it was
+not so wonderful that we had discovered her, for she had been riding a
+few hours ahead of us these many days, and this post-house was just
+such a place as her wit would choose for a bivouac.  I told her as
+much, while chiding her faithlessness.
+
+"Leon has ceased to eat since you went," said I; and God knows that
+that was somewhere near the truth.
+
+Well, we all sat down, while she commanded the Russians to serve us.
+The place was well enough after our night in the woods, and it did a
+man good to breathe its warm air and smell the savour of its primitive
+cooking.  Not only had we the soup, but the fellow in charge produced a
+bottle of excellent Warsaw gin, and the first thing we did was to drain
+a glass to our reunion.
+
+"We must not separate again until we cross the Pont de Jena," says
+Leon, catching mademoiselle's hand and looking deep into her eyes.
+
+The words were cheering, and such as a good supper might prompt a man
+to speak.  Alas! hardly were they uttered than we heard the blare of
+bugles, and, leaping to her feet, Valerie cried out that they were the
+Cossacks.
+
+
+IV
+
+Now here we were, hoist by our own petard.  We had cast aside the heavy
+capes of the Russians as we entered the room, and thrown down their
+busbies, but, as upon a common impulse, we caught them up again when we
+heard the blare of the bugles, and, running to the window, peered out,
+to see the whole street full of hussars, and a couple of their officers
+beating upon the door of the post-house.
+
+"It is the regiment that passed us on the road," said I; "eight hundred
+men, at a hazard.  What the devil now, my nephew?  We are caught like
+rats in a trap!"
+
+He looked very serious, to be sure, while mademoiselle had turned as
+white as a sheet.  Presently it seemed to dawn upon her that we were
+wearing Russian uniforms, and at that she got an idea.
+
+"Go there!" she cried, indicating the low seats by the stove.  "I will
+deal with them.  You must pretend to sleep.  It is your only chance."
+
+We obeyed her instantly.  Leon upon the left hand of the stove, and
+myself upon the right, we smothered our heads in the capes and curled
+ourselves up as men heavy with fatigue.  Hardly had we done this when
+Valerie opened the door and the Russians swarmed headlong into the
+room.  So great was their need of food that some twenty of them were
+about the table in an instant, eating as ravening wolves, and far too
+busy in that employment to pay any attention to us.
+
+Looking at them as I lay, I perceived that they were all officers of
+cavalry, and mostly men of some distinction; while it was also apparent
+that they contemplated no considerable halt in this vicinity, but were
+riding toward the Berezina.  For all that, our situation could well
+justify them in shooting us like dogs if we had been discovered; and it
+was impossible to forget that they had but to lift the capes which
+covered us to undo our little plot in a twinkling.  Do you wonder that
+we lay there as men who waited for a sentence of life or death?
+
+Meanwhile, be sure that Mademoiselle Valerie was not idle.
+
+Many times have I admired the wit and resource of that wonderful woman,
+but never as I did upon that fateful night.  Anyone who had heard her
+would have sworn that she was the arch-enemy of Napoleon and of all his
+works, and that nothing but the direst necessity had carried her into
+the train of his army.  With a candour which seemed childish she
+recited to them all that she had not done these many days.  I could
+have laughed aloud at the fables she invented for the benefit of these
+simpletons.  It was as inspiring as wine to see her smoking their
+little paper cigars and drinking the horrid gin to their successes.
+And all the time Leon and I lay there wondering if the filthy Russians
+round about would utter the word which betrayed us.  To this day I
+believe that they did not for mademoiselle's sake.  It was otherwise
+with the cavalrymen themselves.  When they had eaten and drunk they
+naturally drew near the stove, and soon there were a dozen of them
+swarming about it, and one actually sitting upon my knees.  A more
+anxious moment is not to be described; and when the fellow began to
+banter me in Russian upon the profundity of my sleep I thought for a
+truth that all was lost.
+
+The spirit had mounted to their heads by this time, and they were
+disposed to any humour that occurred to them.  An imp of mischief
+prompted an ensign among them to suggest that Leon should be lifted on
+to the stove, and there left to roast until he came to his senses; and
+this idea was applauded by them all.  Lifting my nephew by the legs,
+his ragged and mud-stained French breeches were laid bare for all to
+see; but, oddly enough, no one remarked the colour, and this I set down
+to the fact that clothes were often exchanged between the army in those
+days, and that a Russian with a hole in his breeches made no bones at
+all about wearing those of a Frenchman.
+
+The danger was really from the fire itself, and the loud oaths it
+brought to Leon's lips.  He was up and awake in an instant now, and
+with a curse upon them all he struck right and left, and brought them
+to their senses.  They were just like men who handled a dog, to
+discover suddenly that he was a wolf and had bitten them; and with
+amazed cries they drew back and turned to mademoiselle.  She, however,
+answered them with one of her merry laughs.  The little Russian that I
+knew permitted me to see that she was warning them against some peril
+of which they were unaware; and no sooner was this done than they
+apprehended the danger for themselves.
+
+You will understand this more readily when you remember that the
+post-house was on the high road, and that while the van of the army was
+then at Bobr, the rearguard, under Marshal Ney, had yet to march
+through.  The outposts of this had entered the village while the
+officers were at supper, but the main body now appearing, the others
+made an immediate descent upon the post-house, and the shots and
+bullets rained upon it like hail.  In a twinkling the plates upon the
+table went flying, the glass of the windows was shattered, and the
+crazy lamps put out.
+
+The Russians themselves, believing that they had been taken in an
+ambush, went headlong through the back door of the building in quest of
+their horses; and soon we heard them rallying in the village street,
+and crying to their fellows to come out.  The alarm had spread like
+wildfire, and such an appeal was not made in vain.  The whole hamlet
+now became a scene of battle, upon which the moon shone brightly and
+the lamps in the house cast a derisive aureole.  Odd that men should be
+killing each other upon that terrible night of winter, with food and
+shelter all about and nothing but the wilderness of death beyond!  Yet
+so it befell, and such was the affair in which we now played our parts.
+
+Naturally, we got out into the street as quickly as possible.  We were
+both armed with pistols and had our swords drawn, but it was apparent
+that we could do nothing until the others had made good their entrance
+and got at the cavalry.  The latter, finding themselves attacked on
+both sides, rode up and down the wide street like madmen, cutting and
+slashing at invisible figures, and plainly drunk with the hospitality
+they had pillaged.  So much our own men perceived, and, advancing from
+house to house, and taking cover wherever it was to be had, they fired
+at the enemy with deadly effect, and blotted the snow with the figures
+of the terrified horsemen who had been caught in this trap of fate.
+
+Soon the place became a veritable shambles.  The infantrymen, under
+Marshal Ney himself, grew bolder every instant, and, led both by the
+marshal and Prince Eugene, they came out into the open, and took the
+cavalry at the bayonet's point.  There was no longer the necessity for
+Leon and myself to be spectators of the affray, and, rushing out into
+the melee, we shot and sabred where we could.  Wiser men would have
+remained in the post-house, and remembered the uniform they wore.  I
+shall not soon forget the instant when some _chasseurs a pied_ rushed
+upon me, and I had to cry "Vive l'Empereur!" with all my lungs to keep
+their bayonets from my throat.  This, however, was but an episode, and,
+throwing the Cossack's cape and busby aside, I fought bareheaded until
+the last of the Russians had staggered to the post-house and fallen
+headlong at the feet of Valerie, who stood waiting and watching at the
+door.
+
+I say the last of the Russians, and this is to give you a fair account
+of it.  A few, it is true, got away through the court of the house to
+the open fields beyond; there may have been one or two who made good
+their escape on their way to Bobr; but of some five hundred who entered
+the village there were more than two hundred and fifty dead in the wide
+street, and almost as many prisoners when the end came.
+
+We ourselves, amazed both at the swiftness of the victory and at our
+own good fortune, returned immediately to the post-house, and there
+found Valerie bending over the figure of the fallen Russian.  The man
+had received a terrible blow from a sabre, which laid open his head
+almost to the ear, and he was stone dead when we found him.  To us he
+was as one of the many whose bodies lay black and stiff in the
+moonlight, but to Valerie St. Antoine he had told another story.
+
+"I know him well," she exclaimed.  "He is General Kutusoff's
+aide-de-camp.  Search his wallet, and you will know why he is on the
+road to Bobr.  Do you not understand how much it may mean to His
+Majesty?"
+
+We heard her with amazement, but did not lose a moment in doing her
+bidding.  There were many papers and letters in the dead man's sack,
+but we knew enough to detect those of importance, and especially to
+pick out the documents which concerned the Emperor.  Here Mademoiselle
+Valerie's knowledge of Russian was something beyond price.  One by one
+she read the documents and told us their contents.  When she came to
+that concerning the Berezina, the miracle of this man's death in such a
+place was beyond compare the event of that memorable night.
+
+In a word, the paper told us that the bridge across the river was held
+by the Russians, and that if His Majesty and the army were not to
+perish another must be found.
+
+
+V
+
+I have told you that Marshal Ney himself had come in at the head of the
+rearguard, and to him we carried the paper immediately.
+
+Be sure the importance of it was not lost upon him, and he heard us
+with an amazement akin to our own.
+
+Naturally, such a man would lose no time in such an emergency, and,
+entering the post-house but to write a dispatch, he handed it to Leon,
+and commanded him to press on at all hazards and overtake the Emperor
+at Bobr.
+
+"The fate of the army depends upon your diligence," said he.  "Lose no
+time, sir, and I will see that you are well rewarded."
+
+To this he added the order that an escort of a squadron of Prince
+Eugene's own cavalry should accompany us, and with this we set out
+immediately upon the high road to the river.
+
+It was now about midnight, intensely cold, but very clear and bright,
+and the detestable north wind but a gentle breeze.  The road itself no
+longer traversed the terrible plains, but wound in and out of a low
+range of hills, which protected us a little from the rigours of the
+night.  Unhappily, our escort was already fatigued with marching, and
+we had not ridden a league when it became apparent that they would
+hinder rather than help us.  So much Leon indicated to their captain,
+and, bidding him return to the prince, he stated our resolution of
+travelling henceforth alone.  "Two may go," says he, "where a hundred
+cannot.  If this news does not reach the Emperor before daybreak the
+army is lost.  It is our only chance, captain, as you must see for
+yourself.  Leave it to me and the major here, and we will do all that
+can be done."
+
+The captain agreed, admitting that the horses of his squadron could go
+no farther, and that the men were entirely unable to support the
+fatigues of such a venture.  We left them accordingly, and pushed on
+henceforth alone.  It was a relief to discover a road where a man could
+pass without stepping over the dead bodies of his comrades, and for a
+full hour we rode with none of those dreadful emblems of tragedy to
+which we had become so accustomed.  In the end we entered a little
+defile which stood upon the brink of the forest.  The high road became
+narrower, and was often wholly obliterated by the snow.  I perceived
+that we were lost, and, drawing rein, I compelled my nephew to realise
+the extent of our misfortune.
+
+"There are no dead here," said I.  "If the army had passed by this
+road, you know what we should have witnessed.  The stars seem to tell
+me that we are too far to the north; there is nothing for it but to
+return as we came."
+
+He cursed and swore at this, for he was as impetuous as every zealous
+soldier should be.
+
+"If day finds the Emperor at Bobr," said he, "all is lost.  We should
+have taken a guide in the village; that is the folly of it, mon oncle.
+We have acted like children, and deserve what we get.  Had we listened
+to Valerie----"
+
+"Ah," said I, "always the women!  Well, what did she say?"
+
+"That she would conduct us to Bobr herself.  I would have named it to
+the marshal, but you know what he thinks of women.  There is nothing
+for it, as you say, but to return, and God keep us from a court-martial
+when we get there."
+
+We turned about, and began to ride up the defile.  A light shone
+through the trees almost at the head of it, and we perceived what we
+had overlooked on our western journey--a house standing in a clearing
+and lighting a welcome patch in that lonely forest.  The idea came to
+me that these people might set us on the road, and, without waiting to
+ask my nephew's opinion, I turned aside and knocked upon the door.  It
+was opened immediately by as handsome a young Jew as I have ever seen.
+Alas! he could not understand a word I addressed to him, but, drawing
+back as one in great fear, he called to someone inside; and presently
+there appeared a young woman as good-looking, but very much less afraid
+of the soldiers.
+
+To my astonishment, a greeting in my own tongue was responded to
+immediately by this intelligent girl.
+
+"Come in, messieurs," said she.  "We do not fear your countrymen; we
+know that the French are our friends."
+
+I hallooed to Leon to come down to the place, and then entered the
+cottage.  A bright lamp burned upon the table, and food was set out
+there.  When I remembered that it must have been nearly one o'clock of
+the morning, the fact seemed not a little suspicious; but a thought
+immediately came to me, and I turned to the girl and questioned her.
+
+"Why are you awake at this time of night?" said I.
+
+She flinched at that, and could not answer me; but I told her
+immediately.
+
+"Your husband has been out to rob the soldiers who have perished," said
+I.  "Come, be frank with me, and you shall not be punished.  Has he not
+just come home and brought you some pretty things?  Do not be afraid to
+tell me, and I will see that you do not suffer."
+
+She admitted it at length.  Her excuses were familiar and difficult to
+deal with.  The men who had been robbed were dead, and their friends
+had deserted them.  Of what use was money to them?  The Cossacks took
+everything, she said; why did we begrudge them such trifles?
+
+To which I responded very sternly that they had rendered themselves
+liable to the penalty of death, and would be pardoned upon one
+condition only.
+
+"Doubtless you know the way to Bobr, young man," said I.
+
+He did not deny it.
+
+"Then you will conduct us there immediately.  Come, where is your
+horse?  You will have need of him."
+
+He swore that he had no horse, and really I believe this was true.  The
+girl's fears had now become distressing to behold, and it was evident
+that she had her doubts of our honesty.
+
+"Isidore is a very bad guide," she exclaimed, looking at us with
+searching eyes.  "You would do much better to take me.  I know the road
+to Bobr.  I have walked there many times."
+
+"Then," said I, "if you have walked there, we are not far from our
+destination.  I will make you a proposition, my dear.  It is that you
+both come.  Nothing will happen to your house for an hour or two, and
+you can go back to-morrow."
+
+The suggestion appeased her, but the man still seemed afraid.
+
+"How shall I protect her from your countrymen?" said he.  "Every road
+is full of soldiers nowadays.  You know what that means, Excellency."
+
+He spoke in Russian, but I gathered his meaning none the less.
+Precious moments were being lost in this argument, and I would hear no
+more of it.
+
+"By God!" said I, drawing a pistol from my belt.  "If you do not start
+immediately I will blow your brains out."
+
+The threat was quite sufficient.  Methodically the woman caught up a
+heavy woollen cloak and addressed a few words to her husband in a
+whisper.  A moment later she was haggling with me about terms, for such
+is the habit of these people.
+
+"You will pay us for our trouble," she protested.  "It is a long way to
+Bobr, messieurs, and we are very poor."
+
+"I will give you a hundred francs if you bring me to the Emperor at
+daybreak," said I.  And, refusing further parley, I went out to the
+bridle track immediately, and left them to decide.  Not a little to my
+surprise, they followed me without protest, and we all set out again,
+the woman on Leon's saddle, the young Jew at my horse's head.
+
+I think it was a little warmer by this time; but this may have been due
+to the wooded nature of the country through which we now rode.  A
+stranger would not have found his way in a lustre of years; so narrow
+was the path, so dense the trees, that we might have entered an
+enchanted land full of hobgoblins and far beyond the confines of the
+civilised world.  It was difficult to remember that the Grand Army
+could not have been ten leagues from us, and were marching and dying
+this night, as upon so many weary nights since we had left Moscow.  For
+all that, we made good headway, and were apparently about to regain the
+open country, when the Jew said something to his young wife, and she
+translated it for our benefit.
+
+"We are coming to a very dangerous place," said she.  "Your
+Excellencies must be prepared.  There are robbers here who are a menace
+to all strangers.  We ourselves pay them tribute--a large sum, much
+more than we can afford.  But that concerns ourselves, and they will
+rob you if they can.  Please, therefore, be very careful, and do not
+speak as you go."
+
+I looked at Leon, and it was evident that the same thought was in both
+our minds.  These brigands would very likely be the kinsmen of this
+engaging couple, and possibly we had been led to their lair for no
+other purpose than that of robbery.  So I took my pistol from my
+holster again, and, showing it to the young Jew, I warned him.
+
+"Robbers or no robbers," said I, "you will be a dead man the moment you
+let go of my bridle rein."
+
+He shook his head, and professed not to understand me.  It was clear,
+however, that he had made a pretty shrewd guess at my meaning, and he
+pressed on so quickly that I began to doubt my previous view of his
+honesty.
+
+Was it possible that he was really afraid of this ghostly place?  Well,
+I could understand as much.  The fables of Hades never painted a
+gloomier abyss or a nether pit so awe-inspiring.
+
+Sheer cliffs of sandy rock rose up to a great height on every hand.
+There was but a hand's breadth of sky to be seen above us; while below,
+far down in a crevice, there glistened the ice of a frozen rivulet.
+The path itself would have served for a nimble goat, but was
+treacherous enough for a horse.  We all dismounted, and for a full hour
+went as mountaineers upon a precipice.  Then we came to a sudden halt
+at the young man's bidding, and listening, we heard a piercing scream
+echoing and re-echoing in that frightful abyss.
+
+"Good God!" cried Leon; "they are butchering a Frenchman.  A man has
+died by the knife.  I know that sound; I have heard it too often."
+
+The young Jew began to tremble like an aspen at this, and his wife
+vainly tried to comfort him.  Turning to us, she whispered a reminder
+of her prophecy concerning the dangers of the journey.
+
+"It is the brigand Orlof," she said.  "You see what has befallen us.
+We must return immediately."
+
+"Oh, come," said I; "such is not the habit of our countrymen.  Who is
+this precious Orlof, and how many friends has he?"
+
+She responded that it was impossible to say.  There might be two or
+three, there might be twenty.  To which I answered that we would take
+our chance, and pushing the young Jew on before me, I covered him with
+my pistol.
+
+It was then that I discovered that madame had a great Russian pistol of
+her own, and was already looking to its priming.  So the brigands were
+not her fathers and mothers after all.
+
+We turned the corner of the pass, and a flickering red light fell
+suddenly on the path before us.  It came from a hole in the wall of the
+rock, giving access to a cave of melancholy aspect.  The question
+whether we should pause or go on was answered by me in an instant.
+
+"Attention!" I whispered to them, and, raising my hand, I now took
+command of the expedition, and crept stealthily to the aperture.  Ten
+strides and I was up to it, and had the mystery before my eyes.
+
+There were three of the filthiest and most revolting moujiks I have
+ever looked upon squatting upon the floor of a considerable cave, and
+they were busy dividing the property of a man who lay dead by their
+fireside.  The latter was an officer of the fusiliers, as I could see
+by his epaulettes.  They had hacked his head off with a scythe, which
+lay by the tumbled corpse, and were now counting his money.
+
+You will understand with what feelings of rage and fury my nephew and I
+beheld this spectacle, and the steps we took to avenge our comrade.
+Hardly had I clapped eyes upon the dead fusilier than I shot
+point-blank at the biggest of the Russians, and saw him fall forward
+into the very fire he had kindled.  The two with him sprang to their
+feet, uttering the shrillest cries of alarm, but Leon settled the first
+of them with his pistol, and, to my amazement, the young Jew shot the
+third.
+
+"I am well quit of him," said he; "there will be no more tribute next
+year."
+
+And, upon this, what must he do but dash into the cavern and seize the
+money and the jewels which the robber still held in his quivering
+fingers.
+
+At this I confess that I laughed aloud, and had not the heart to
+deprive him of his plunder.  Sufficient that the dead was avenged and
+that these assassins would butcher Frenchmen no more.
+
+
+VI
+
+This delay had been unfortunate, and thereafter we pressed on as fast
+as the difficulties of the path would permit.  The night was speeding,
+and the fate of the French army depended upon our swiftness.  The day
+must be an enemy if the Emperor were not discovered.
+
+This was all very well, but we knew no more than the dead how far from
+Bobr we then stood; nor did the young Jew who guided us.  Indeed, it
+dawned upon me after a time that he himself was lost, and knew the way
+no better than we.  This was a terrible reflection, and led me to the
+bitterest reproaches upon them both.  I swore that they should be shot
+if they had played us false; to which the woman answered bravely
+enough, while the man whined an excuse which led me to doubt him more
+than ever.  The road must be across the wide ravine which we were then
+entering, he declared.  There was a bridle path through the thicket,
+and that would lead us out to the high road to Bobr.  So much he said,
+and so little did the facts justify him.
+
+We had now come to a wide pit, deep in snow and everywhere surrounded
+by the forest.  Even the path by which we entered it was difficult to
+trace once we had been caught in the trap.  And so we went, round and
+round, the horses often up to their girths and Isidore to his neck in
+the half-melted slush.  Half an hour of it found the brutes exhausted
+and we at the end of our tether.  The night had been lost, and,
+perhaps, the army with it.  Never have I known a greater chagrin than
+overtook me at such an hour.  To have been entrusted with so great a
+thing and to have failed!  Good God! what a reckoning when next we came
+before His Majesty!
+
+All this was black in the mind when the day began to dawn and a wan
+glimmer of chilly light to break above the white foreground of the
+frozen trees.
+
+The young Jew, who had been weeping bitterly, recovered his composure
+when the day broke, and, seeming to recollect himself, he declared that
+a shrine in the wood was the landmark, and that if we could but detect
+it the road also would be regained.  Perhaps he would have proved a
+false prophet after all, but for the distant blare of a bugle, and upon
+it the echo of rifle-shots far away down the valley.  This immediately
+indicated to us that we looked towards the south, and another ten
+minutes had not passed when madame clapped her hands and declared that
+she espied the shrine in a clearing of the trees.
+
+Rarely can a mistake have been redeemed with such tragic irony as upon
+this fatal morning.  We had lost the way and had found it--alas, too
+late!
+
+It was a safe passage thereafter, and one of which I remember little.
+The forest became less dense from league to league, and ultimately
+showed us the great white plains we knew so well.  Even from afar the
+black bodies of our dead were to be discerned.  We knew that this was
+the road to Bobr, and, as our guides declared, that we stood barely a
+league from the hamlet itself.
+
+Of the Jews we had now no further need, and paying them the money we
+had promised, we set spurs to our jaded horses and rode on at a gallop.
+The last I saw of Isidore and the woman showed them quarrelling over
+the money at the wood's edge; and this was just what one would have
+expected them to be doing.  We had almost forgotten their existence
+when, some half an hour later, we set eyes upon the whitened spires and
+low walls of the picturesque town of Bobr.  The Emperor was there, and
+to him we must give an account of our stewardship.
+
+God knows it was with no fair prospect that we entered the place at the
+moment when the army was waking to hear the fatal news.
+
+
+VII
+
+I say it was with no fair prospect, and yet there is an after-word.
+Hardly were we in the main street of the place when we heard the
+clatter of horses' hoofs ahead of us, and presently we perceived a
+young hussar coming down the street at a canter.
+
+"Good God!" cried Leon.  "It's Valerie!"
+
+I stared with all my eyes.
+
+"Valerie, by all that's wonderful!  Then she has followed us after all,
+and herself has carried the news to the Emperor.  Thank God for that."
+
+He admitted the truth of it with a sigh.
+
+"We shall look the biggest fools in Russia to-day," said he.
+
+But that I doubted.
+
+"She is a woman," said I, "and--well, you are the best judge of what
+she has done.  I will wager a hundred louis that she has not said a
+word of our failure."
+
+He seemed to think it possible.  Valerie herself had now drawn rein
+before the door of a considerable house, and there she waited for us to
+come up.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+WE CROSS THE BEREZINA
+
+I
+
+The news that the Russians had cut the bridge across the Berezina came
+as a thunderclap to the army.
+
+We had believed that we had only to cross that fatal river to find
+ourselves immediately in a land overflowing with milk and honey.  We
+never thought of the long leagues lying between ourselves and the city
+of Paris, or remembered that this dreadful Russian winter had but just
+begun.  Food and shelter lay beyond the river, we thought--so little
+did we know.
+
+Then the news came that the Cossacks of the south had cut the bridge.
+The men said that we were caught like rats in a trap.  Our generals
+were hourly in consultation.  None could declare with truth that he had
+now any real hope of escaping death or the horrors of a Russian prison.
+
+It was at this crisis of our fate that the good fortune befell me of
+being of some personal service to the army and to His Majesty.
+
+We had advanced a stage upon the road to the Berezina, and in the
+middle of the night of November 20th we arrived at the town of
+Borisoff.  The Emperor's quarters were in a country mansion near the
+town.  I myself, with Leon and Valerie St. Antoine, took refuge in a
+mean house occupied by the priest of the place, and, having eaten a
+little black bread and boiled a handful of rice (all the poor fellow
+could offer us), we lay about his stove to sleep.
+
+For the others this proved easy enough.  No sooner had they laid their
+heads upon the sheepskins which the holy father provided for us, than
+their deep breathing responded to the measure of their fatigue.  For
+myself, however, there was no such refuge.  I could not sleep a wink
+despite my weariness.  Beyond that, strange visions tormented me even
+when awake.  For this, the doom which threatened the remnant of that
+once great army may have been responsible.  I believed that I should
+never see my country again--and God only knows what that meant to one
+who had suffered so much.
+
+Such was my condition when I heard someone tapping faintly upon the
+door of the priest's house, and then a sound of weeping.  A common
+instinct of self-preservation should have made me callous, for those
+were the days when a man would have denied meat to his own
+brother--yet, whether it were the hour of the night or the despair of
+our situation, I know not--but, rising immediately, I took the
+rushlight in my hand and opened to the unknown.
+
+
+II
+
+The new-comer was dressed from head to foot in the fur of the silver
+fox, and had a grey woollen shawl about her head.  I have rarely seen a
+more beautiful face upon a child or eyes so sorrowful.
+
+Apparently of fourteen years of age or thereabouts, I perceived at once
+that she was of noble birth, while the sweetness of her voice was
+beyond words.  Weeping upon the threshold, she ceased to weep directly
+she had entered the room, and, drawing herself up with a dignity worthy
+of her race, she told me that her name was Joan d'Izambert, and begged
+me to come immediately to the help of her brother, who was dying.
+
+This was an astonishing request, and I could not forbear a question.
+
+"Mademoiselle," I asked, "who is your brother, and what brought you to
+this house?"
+
+She replied immediately that her brother was Gabriel d'Izambert, one of
+the _pontonniers_, and that he had been sent to the river by General
+Roguet.  From this excursion I understood that the young man had
+returned in a state of delirium, and was now lying in an arbour of a
+garden close by.
+
+"Sergeant Picard sent me to you," she explained.  "He knows my brother
+well, and said that you would come.  Oh, monsieur, we have suffered so
+much, and now there is this.  Will you not help me?"
+
+I told her that I would go.  For another, perchance, I would not have
+stirred a foot that night; but there was so much in the child's
+manner--a gift to command and a nobility of mien which were
+remarkable--that I put on my great fur coat without more ado, and went
+down to the garden with her.  It lay, perhaps, a hundred paces from the
+house which we occupied, and was attached to a considerable mansion, of
+which General Roguet and his staff had then taken possession.
+
+The arbour itself proved to be a spacious summer-house, matted and
+thatched, and provided with a stove, in which a good fire had been
+kindled.  I was presented immediately to a distinguished old gentleman,
+well advanced in years, but still wearing a uniform of the engineers.
+He told me in a word that he had followed his son as far as Smolensk
+upon our outward journey, and there had waited for the army's return.
+
+"His mother was with us then," he said--and so he indicated that his
+wife had perished during these dreadful days.
+
+The son himself--a fine young man of noble presence--lay upon the floor
+by the stove, wrapped in a bearskin coat, but plainly the victim of
+delirium.  I found him in a burning fever, his pulse running high, and
+his cheeks gone scarlet.  He raved incessantly of the river and the
+bridge, and of the Russians who had hunted us.
+
+It was no new thing to hear a man talk thus at a moment when the army
+perished by tens of thousands; but the spectacle of this bare place,
+and the glowing stove, and the stricken old man, and the child that was
+left to him, touched me beyond words, and I promised him immediately
+all the help that lay in my power.
+
+"Yet, God knows," I exclaimed, "that is little enough, for we are all
+likely to be in a Russian prison to-morrow.  You know, sir," I said,
+turning to him, "that the bridge is down and the army trapped."
+
+"The bridge is down," he cried, "but another may be built.  Save my
+son, major, and you may yet save France."
+
+I had no idea of his meaning.  If I thought of it at all, it was to
+remind myself that this family had suffered much, and that the father's
+talk might be little more rational than the son's at such a moment.
+Bidding the child run back to the house I had quitted, and thence bring
+my nephew and my case of instruments, I assured the old gentleman that
+I would do my best and that he might count upon me.  The young man,
+meanwhile, did not cease to rave in a voice which was most distressing
+to hear, and, catching me by the hand as I bent over him, he implored
+me, for God's sake, to let the Emperor know immediately.  When I,
+however, asked him for a message he could give me none.  "The bridge!"
+he would cry, and repeat the words a hundred times.  His very frenzy
+was a terrible thing to see.
+
+My nephew and Mademoiselle Valerie returned to the arbour with the
+child anon, being anxious as to my whereabouts.  Leon was frankly
+disgusted with the whole business, and would have had me return to the
+house immediately.
+
+"There are a thousand worse than this man for every league you march,"
+said he.  "Really, mon oncle, this is no time for sentiment."
+
+In her turn, Valerie told him to be silent, and seemed really concerned
+at the misfortunes of the unhappy family.
+
+"I know them well," she said to me.  "The mother is a relative of the
+Duke de Melun, and old General d'Izambert often came to my father's
+house.  Imagine the madness which brought such old people to Russia
+because their boy was going!"
+
+I rejoined that it was the kind of madness which had become common in
+France during recent years.  And this was the truth, for many a family
+had gone out merely because sons or brothers were there.  It was clear
+that an unusual bond of affection united these brave people, and that
+the memory of the dead mother provoked a sentiment very real.  Father
+and daughter alike watched me with pitiful eyes while I bled the young
+_pontonnier_, and they hastened to obey me when I commanded them to
+melt snow in a cup and to give him a cooling drink.
+
+"I will speak to General Roguet at dawn," said I.  "You shall find a
+place for him in the house.  God alone knows whether any of us will be
+here to help you then; it depends upon his fellows.  If there is no
+ford discovered in the next twenty-four hours, the river is shut to us,
+and the army is lost.  You, monsieur, know that as well as I."
+
+He assented, looking at me with grave eyes.
+
+"Major," he said very solemnly, "there is a ford.  My son discovered it
+this day."
+
+The news astounded me.
+
+"Good God!" said I.  "You are speaking the truth?"
+
+"Look at me, major.  Would I lie to you?"
+
+"Then the Emperor knows.  You have told him, monsieur?"
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"Swear by Almighty God that you will not desert us, and I will name the
+place to you," he said.
+
+I knew not what to say to him--the dilemma was beyond all words.  If I
+pledged myself to these people, then truly must I be a prisoner in
+Russia.  If I did not pledge myself, the army was lost.
+
+"But," I cried, "there is my regiment--my duty, Monsieur d'Izambert."
+
+It was then that Valerie spoke.
+
+"Go," she said to Leon, pointing to the door; "let the Emperor know.  I
+will stay with these people."
+
+
+III
+
+Here was an astonishing turn, and one little looked for.
+
+The idea of this dashing girl, clad in her hussar uniform, yet womanly
+beyond compare, the idea of her becoming the guardian of the sick man
+at first astounded and then delighted Monsieur d'Izambert.  Helpless
+and infirm himself, the companion of a mere child caught in the toils
+of suffering, he responded warmly to such a pledge and thanked her most
+graciously.
+
+The boy himself had now sunk into a kind of coma, and there were
+moments when I thought he was dead.  Meanwhile, Leon did not return,
+and we waited in the silence of the night for the alarm which must
+presently attend the momentous tidings.  When it came, it was as though
+the whole army woke upon the dawn of a feast-day.  Bugles blared; a
+babel of voices arose in the street; the wagons of the engineers went
+through at a gallop; lights appeared in every house.  Anon you heard
+men calling the news from door to door.  A ford had been discovered;
+the army would cross the Berezina this day.
+
+So they said, and such was my own belief.  The young _pontonnier_ had
+given the clearest directions to old Monsieur d'Izambert before the
+fever overtook him, and these, marked upon his map, had gone to
+head-quarters.  Nothing remained to be done that our engineers could
+not do.  They would bridge the shallow stream, and the remnant of the
+six hundred thousand would pass over.  I reflected that I should not be
+among them.  The promise that Valerie had given bound me no less than
+her.  Impossible to leave her here in this God-forsaken hamlet, with a
+sick man for her charge and a veteran of threescore years for her
+bodyguard.  She had pledged herself to stay, and I must stand by her.
+It seemed to me, then, that our liberty, if not our lives, depended
+upon the youth, who lay alternately burning with fever and shivering
+with cold upon the boards at our feet.  His death would have set us
+free.  I say it with truth that neither she nor I desired freedom at
+such a price.
+
+You will have understood that it was day by this time.
+
+The bruit of alarm was still to be heard in the street before the house
+where the remnants of the army pressed on headlong towards the river.
+I did not suppose that we should be left to ourselves, we who possessed
+the precious secret of the ford, and in this I was not mistaken.  Many
+from head-quarters came down to General Roguet's house when daylight
+appeared, and it must have been a little after eight o'clock when the
+Emperor himself strode into the arbour and demanded to see Gabriel
+d'Izambert.
+
+I had not been unprepared for this, and be sure I made haste to explain
+the situation to His Majesty.
+
+"Sire," I said, "the young man is overtaken by a fever, caught in the
+river yesterday.  It will probably be but a passing attack, but
+meanwhile his father knows all that your Majesty should know, and you
+will find him very much at your service.  He has at the moment gone to
+the house yonder in quest of necessaries; but there is one here with
+whom you are acquainted and whom you will not be displeased to meet
+again under such circumstances."
+
+With this I presented Mademoiselle Valerie to him, and he greeted her
+very warmly.  The young _pontonnier_ was still asleep, and it seemed
+idle to wake him.  Nevertheless, the Emperor insisted, with his usual
+impetuosity, and nothing would content him but an immediate audience of
+this unhappy Gabriel.  Judge of my astonishment when, upon being
+awakened, the lad seemed in possession of his normal faculties and
+ready to answer as though he were fresh from a healthy sleep.
+
+"The ford is below Studianka," he said, with a warmth of feeling which
+betrayed an ardent loyalty.  "It is four miles above the old bridge,
+your Majesty, and, should the river remain as it is, the engineers
+could cross it before nightfall.  I beg you now to let me accompany
+you, for I am quite well again."
+
+And then he said, lifting pathetic eyes which betrayed his youthful
+earnestness, "Your Majesty will not refuse me this last favour?"
+
+Such was his request, which won an immediate assent from the Emperor.
+The lives of a hundred thousand men may have depended upon this youth's
+loyalty, and who would count the loss of his life if thereby the army
+could pass over?  Not I, certainly--nor His Majesty, who never stood at
+a sentiment where his own interests were concerned.  Half an hour had
+not elapsed when Gabriel d'Izambert had been lifted into one of the
+baggage wagons, and we had all set out for the Berezina.
+
+Put briefly, it was a race where life or death was the stake.  If we
+could neither ford nor bridge the river by nightfall, assuredly was the
+Grand Army lost.  There was not a man amongst us who did not know as
+much as we drew near to the fatal scene and set eyes for the first time
+upon those waters which had baffled us.  Had the river risen during the
+night, or should we find it as Gabriel d'Izambert had found it
+yesterday?  The lad himself put the question a hundred times as we
+tramped by the side of the wagon, and descended at length toward that
+gloomy Styx which was so soon to be the scene of our overwhelming
+desolation.
+
+
+IV
+
+Naturally, I considered myself released at this time from my
+understanding with the old gentleman.  He, however, was of no such
+opinion, and, with an anxiety very natural under the circumstances, he
+reminded me frequently of the undertaking.
+
+"You will not leave us, major," he said.  "We are so very helpless, and
+you see what is about to happen to my son.  We cannot leave him, and,
+if the bridge be built, naturally the army will be the first to cross.
+Remember what you have promised me, and let it be an honourable
+understanding between us."
+
+It was difficult to answer such an appeal, and, for that matter, a
+greater anxiety concerning the state of the river led me to dismiss it
+lightly.  What mattered it whether we crossed early or late if the army
+could be saved and the honour of France upheld?  These thoughts were in
+my mind when, at length, the Berezina came into view and all that
+gloomy panorama was unrolled before our wistful eyes.  Let me tell you
+of this that you may understand more fully the calamity which
+subsequently overtook us.
+
+As we first saw it, the Berezina did not appear to be a formidable
+river.  It ran beneath a sky heavy with cloud and through a marsh, of
+which the thaws of recent days had made nothing but a treacherous bog.
+
+When it first came into view there were some thousands of the Fusiliers
+and Chasseurs of the Guard encamped upon its eastern bank.  A drizzle
+of snow fell, and it was clear that the waters of the river had begun
+to flow with some rapidity.  Little waves lapped the marshy shore;
+great blocks of ice went careering here and there as though they were
+monstrous fish at play.  The wind moaned dismally and the damp searched
+our very bones.
+
+Of shelter there was none, save that of a few miserable huts upon the
+hillside and of a low farmhouse, which the general's staff now
+occupied.  Luckily for us, we took possession of one of the former, and
+there I left Valerie with Monsieur d'Izambert and his daughter, while I
+myself rode on to the river to get what tidings I could.  These, to be
+sure, were not of ill-omen, and the fact that they were not so is to be
+set down to the bravery of the gallant fellows who were then working
+for our salvation.
+
+Never in all the story of a retreat can there be a more glorious page
+written than that which told of our own _pontonniers_ on this famous
+day of November.
+
+Let me tell you in brief words that, despite the bitter cold, the snow
+which beat upon their faces and the icy water of the river, they
+plunged boldly into the stream, and stood there, often working up to
+their necks, that the bridge which should save the army might be built.
+The feat has been made light of by subsequent writers; yet here I bear
+witness that a nobler thing was never done, nor any task achieved so
+heroically in all the years of His Majesty's victories.
+
+Imagine it, my friends, and think upon our situation.
+
+We knew that the Russians were to the north and the south of us.  The
+ancient bridge below Borisoff had been cut.  If we could not ford this
+icy stream, then death or the horrors of a Russian prison awaited us.
+Our one hope was this determined band of ten, who offered their own
+lives upon the altar of our safety and plunged into the river that they
+might win it for us.
+
+Hour by hour we watched them with feverish eyes.  Even the Emperor came
+down to the place, and with his own hand served wine to those heroes
+who were winning life for him.  One by one the pontoons were moored,
+and the gap between the coveted shores made narrower.
+
+To me it seemed as though it were a race between Fate and the fortunes
+of France.  I saw the river rising every hour; the moaning wind became
+a dreadful thing to hear as the day waxed and waned.  And ever through
+the terrible hours the snow fell pitilessly and the ice gathered and
+crashed in the torrent which lashed the pontoons.
+
+Would our fellows win by nightfall, or was all indeed lost?  I answered
+the question for myself when, at sunset, the triumphant cries of the
+fusiliers announced that a communication with the opposite shore was
+established, and I saw the Guard ride over, their trumpets blaring and
+their eagles proudly proclaiming their victory.
+
+A few minutes later I myself rode over the bridge, and immediately rode
+back again.  It was something to feel that the devilish stream was
+conquered and the fruits of brave men's toil reaped to the full.  Alas,
+how little I knew of what was to come after or of the slaughter which
+must attend the unspeakable morrow!
+
+I have told you that I crossed the bridge and immediately recrossed it.
+This was upon an order of General Roguet himself, who told me that
+every surgeon would be needed upon the other side to help the sick
+across, and that I must rejoin our own company of Velites as quickly as
+might be.  It had never been in my head to desert old Monsieur
+d'Izambert and his daughter, and I sought them out directly I had
+recrossed to the eastern bank.  My nephew was with them at this time,
+but Gabriel d'Izambert had not yet returned from the river, nor did any
+know his whereabouts.  Naturally, we hoped that he had gone across with
+the Fusiliers of the Guard, but the old gentleman refused to believe
+that he had done so, and was already determined to spend the night in
+the shepherd's hut.  Here he was well enough, and, for that matter, I
+thought we had all done wisely to camp where we were rather than to
+find an open bivouac on the farther shore.
+
+That this was the general opinion the scene upon our side of the river
+quickly made manifest.  Far to the north and south of the twin bridges
+which the _pontonniers_ had now erected were the bivouac fires and the
+camps of the gathered remnants.  Baggage wagons began to roll up, and
+their attendants to gather in hundreds, eyeing the dismal waters and
+promising to cross at dawn.  No one seemed to think that there was any
+hurry or that it mattered where he slept to-night.  In truth, I think
+the army believed that a great moral victory had already been won, and
+that the end of its sufferings was at hand.  Let them but cross the
+river, and the fair fields of France would beckon them.  Again I say
+that they had forgotten the bitter leagues which lay between them and
+liberty.
+
+My own duty at this time was to see to the sick of our own regiment,
+and to provide for their crossing.  Here I found willing helpers.  We
+collected the wagons with their unhappy burdens, and drew them up as
+near to the river as we dared.  Why they were not sent across that
+night, I cannot tell you.  When I recall the precious hours that we
+wasted, the solitude of the bridges, and the miracle of the
+opportunity, it seems to me that no words can describe truly the
+magnitude of that blunder.  Yet there it was, and so at length we slept
+during the long hours of storm and darkness.  When we awoke the
+Russians were upon the hills about us, and their shells were already
+thundering upon our bivouac.  God, what an awakening for men who had
+hoped so much!
+
+
+V
+
+The sound of cannon broke in upon our sleep a little after the hour of
+dawn.
+
+We had made a comfortable bivouac in the hut, and were all dozing in
+the straw which covered its floor, when the earth about us began to
+tremble, and everyone started up to realise the dread alarm.
+
+It chanced that I was lying cheek by jowl with Valerie St. Antoine, and
+that we were the first of them all to run into the open and ascertain
+the truth.  It needed but a single glance at the hills and the river to
+tell us that story in all its menace.
+
+It was just light at this time--a colder morning than that of
+yesterday, with a clearer heaven.  As the clouds of night rolled away,
+the black figures of the Cossacks upon the hills were clearly to be
+discerned, while the smoke of their cannon drifted slowly upon the
+still air and hovered above the swirling river.  It was plain that a
+considerable force had come up in the night, and, having discovered our
+intention, began immediately to fire upon the bridges.  We could see
+their cannon-balls plumping into the water, striking the floes of
+driving ice, or even rending the frail pontoons which our engineers had
+moored with such difficulty.  And while they did this a cry of horror
+ran from end to end of our own encampment--the cries of those who
+believed that delay had undone them, and that they were betrayed.
+
+From every camp fire now, from the shelter of puny huts and caves dug
+out of the earth, from wagons and tents, there appeared a stream of men
+and women, too, camp followers who mingled with the soldiery and cursed
+or entreated as the mood dictated.
+
+Standing upon a knoll not a hundred paces from the bridge, Mademoiselle
+Valerie and I were soon enveloped by these pitiful creatures, who ran
+to and fro like driven sheep, and had lost what little wit they had
+possessed.  It was a dreadful thing to see women of all ages, with the
+tears streaming down their faces, their hair unkempt and their dress
+but a tatter of rags, throwing themselves at the feet of officers as
+helpless as they, and begging instantly to be escorted across the
+bridge.  Yet such was the scene into which I was now plunged, and such
+the disorderly mob with which the remnant of the army had to deal.  As
+for ourselves, it did not seem very much to matter what we did.
+
+Mademoiselle Valerie, as imperturbable as ever, addressed words of
+comfort to the unhappy people and begged them to be patient.
+
+"The soldiers will protect you," she said; and, God knows, how much I
+wished that the boast could be made good.
+
+We, however, were as helpless as they, and, when we found ourselves
+alone, the truth was not to be concealed.
+
+"They will destroy the bridge, Monsieur Constant," she said; "and what
+then?  Is there anyone here who can tell us what to do?"
+
+I rejoined that wiser heads would have told us last night, and reminded
+her that we had the old man and the child to think of.
+
+"The bridge must be crossed at any cost," said I.  "Convince the old
+gentleman of that, and we will set out immediately.  It is idle to stop
+here on the supposition that his son will return.  Do you not see
+yourself how unreasonable it is?"
+
+She agreed with me, and returned immediately to the hut.
+Unfortunately, we had to deal with the obstinacy of a father to whom
+the only son was all that mattered in this world.  Monsieur d'Izambert
+refused to move a step until the young _pontonnier_ had returned.  Nor
+would he hear of our escorting his daughter across the river.
+
+"We will cross together," he said, "or we will not cross at all.  My
+daughter would wish it, major.  How would it help her to return to
+France when those dear to her remain the prisoners of this unhappy
+country?  You do not know what you are asking me--to leave my only son;
+it is impossible."
+
+I saw that nothing would convince him, and taking Valerie aside, I told
+her as much.
+
+"It will be a case of sauve qui peut," said I.  "We are under no
+obligation to these people, and why should we perish because of them?
+Come with me now, and, if it is possible to do so, I will recross the
+river later in the day.  I pledge my word upon that.  But,
+mademoiselle," said I, "it is madness for you to listen to them."
+
+She shook her head, smiling in the old, alluring way.
+
+"It has all been madness," she exclaimed; and that was as true a thing
+as ever she said.
+
+"We shall stand a better chance to-night, Monsieur Constant, than now,
+when there are so many on the bridge," she continued.  "Let us wait
+upon our opportunity.  Surely you would not attempt the passage at this
+moment?"  And she pointed to the bridges, thronged already by a
+terrified mob, and pounded by the cannon of the Russians.
+
+My answer to this was a shrug of the shoulders, for no other seemed
+possible.
+
+Any man who was at the Berezina will understand the terror and pity of
+the scene I now witnessed and the helplessness of any Frenchman who
+stood upon the eastern bank of the cursed river.
+
+As a hail of death, the shells and the bullets of the Russians poured
+down upon the terror-stricken fugitives.  Dreadful cries arose.  So
+great was the press upon the pontoons that hundreds of our people were
+thrust headlong into the swirling waters, hundreds of the weak crushed
+beneath the feet of the stronger.  All huddled together--wagons driven
+over living men, cavalry hewing their way with swords, the cries of
+cantinieres, women and children screaming for pity--all, I say, pressed
+on in that mad quest of shelter which was to be offered to so few.
+
+Soon the river was black with the bodies of the drowned.  I saw
+wretched creatures clinging to the ice-floes or the pontoons of the
+bridge; some fighting as devils for a foothold upon the narrow way;
+others too weak to struggle as the strong thrust them aside and the
+black water enveloped them.  Wisely indeed had Valerie insisted upon
+delay.  Yet it was a melancholy thing to reflect that even an hour
+before the day had dawned we might all have passed over in safety and
+set out upon our way to the Paris of our dreams.
+
+I shall not weary you with any undue recital of the horrors of that
+unnameable day.  From dawn to dusk the slaughter continued.  It was a
+tragic moment indeed when the Russians at length destroyed the greater
+bridge, and with it a regiment of cavalry of the Guard then passing
+over.  This was quite early in the day, and thereafter the scenes upon
+the pontoons became beyond all words awful to witness.  Even the
+bravest were as helpless as children in that terrible _lutte pour la
+vie_.  I remember, about one o'clock in the afternoon, riding down to
+the water's edge with my old friend Gros-Jean of the Velites, and
+watching the frantic endeavour that most courageous of men made to
+cross the bridge, despite my entreaties.  Alas! he had but plunged into
+the medley when a Cuirassier of the Guard thrust him down, and he, in
+turn, clinging to his aggressor's cloak, they rolled headlong on to a
+great floe of ice, and were presently engulfed with the thousands the
+insatiable waters already had claimed.  Who in the face of such scenes
+would have advised a woman and an old man to dare the transit?  Not I,
+in truth, whatever the cost.
+
+The miseries of our own situation will now be perceived by all.  We had
+refrained from crossing upon a quixotic impulse, and it seemed that our
+sacrifice had cost us our liberty if not our lives.  Hour by hour the
+Cossacks were drawing nearer, their fire becoming more terrible and
+their hosts more plainly to be seen.  Night must find them down upon
+us, or we ourselves but units amidst the maddened people who fought
+like wild beasts for a foothold on the bridge.  Even old Monsieur
+d'Izambert began to perceive the folly of it as the day waxed and
+waned, and vainly he waited for the son who did not return.
+
+"We should have crossed," he said; "Gabriel must have gone with the
+Emperor."
+
+So much I believed to be the truth until about the hour of five
+o'clock, when to our great astonishment the young _pontonnier_ himself
+appeared at the hut, and carried that dire intelligence which was all
+that was needed to consummate our despair.
+
+"I am to blow up the bridge," he said.  "It is by the Emperor's orders.
+We must save the army; the others must perish."
+
+We did not answer him.  To such had our mistaken folly led us.  It was
+death or the Russian prison indeed; there could be no alternative.
+
+
+VI
+
+You will see the nature of the difficulty which now confronted us.
+
+It was almost certain death to venture upon the bridge; the alternative
+meant that we faced the Cossacks and accepted grace at their hands.
+
+To myself, an old soldier who had served His Majesty so many years, it
+mattered little now what befell me.  So much had I suffered, so bitter
+had been the days, that any shelter--even that of a prison, in which I
+could eat and sleep--would have been a welcome harbourage from this
+march of death.
+
+But for Valerie St. Antoine, she who had carried herself so bravely
+during the terrible weeks, she who had served France with such valour
+and loyalty--that she should become the prisoner and the victim of
+these devils, was indeed the last calamity.  What to say to her in the
+face of the Emperor's order I knew not.  The bridge must be destroyed
+to save His Majesty.  Would she deny the necessity of that?
+
+These thoughts were in my mind when I took her aside and questioned her
+as to the course we should pursue.  To my astonishment I found that she
+herself had already debated the question, and that her mind was made up.
+
+"We must swim the river, Monsieur Constant," she said; "you and I.  Let
+Joan go with us.  Monsieur d'Izambert will not leave his son.  I do not
+blame him, but now we must think of ourselves."
+
+It was a bold response, and yet I will not say that I had not thought
+of it.
+
+From time to time during the hours of the day's agony I had seen
+intrepid cavalry men go down to the swirling Berezina, and boldly put
+their horses to the water.  Few who did so had lived.  Some were struck
+by Russian bullets, and died in the saddle.  The horses of others,
+overcome by the cold, sank without warning, and dragged their masters
+with them.  A few gained the marsh upon the opposite shore, and either
+breasted it or ended their sufferings there.  All this we had witnessed
+together, and yet, as Valerie said, it was the only way--the river or
+the prison!  Do you wonder that our choice was soon made?
+
+We returned to the hut, and, taking Monsieur d'Izambert aside, I put
+the alternatives to him.
+
+"Your son," said I, "is a very noble fellow.  Be sure, monsieur, that
+his name will not be forgotten when the story of this day is told.  The
+command which has been given him is a very great compliment.  No doubt
+he will be clever enough to save himself when he has done his duty; but
+we must now save ourselves.  It would be a madman's task to attempt to
+cross the bridge at such a time.  There is only one way, and it is that
+which Mademoiselle Valerie and I propose to take."
+
+And then I told him of our intention to swim the river.
+
+"Your daughter," said I, "may go upon my saddle-bow.  If you yourself
+have a mind for the venture, I will find you a horse quickly enough.
+The decision must rest with you.  We have no time to lose, for the
+river is rising every hour.  If you decide to remain here, being a
+civilian and a non-combatant, I doubt if the Russians will trouble you.
+That, monsieur, is for you to say.  I will save your daughter if I can;
+the rest is in the hands of God."
+
+He was much distressed, but he did not fail to perceive the realities
+of the situation.  His love for his son touched me deeply, and when he
+declared that he would remain with Gabriel, I could not gainsay him.
+
+"Save Joan," he said, putting both his hands into mine.  "If the time
+should ever come that we meet again in Paris, I will never forget this
+day, Major Constant.  I am an old man, and it can matter little to me
+now--but the child has all her life before her."
+
+I thought it a wise resolution, and told him as much.
+
+"We will wait for you on the other side," said I, though in my heart I
+doubted it I should ever see him there.  Then, bidding him be of good
+courage, and taking a cordial farewell of his son, I set out
+immediately.
+
+Valerie awaited me on the brink of the river.  Her black charger
+appeared to be as fresh as though he had left his stable at Moscow but
+yesterday; her uniform of hussars was as trim and well kept as any good
+soldier might have desired.  As for little Joan, the tale we had told
+her was one which a child would not question.  We were to carry her
+across the river, and her father and brother would follow presently in
+the baggage wagons.  She believed us with a child's faith, and, being
+drawn up upon the saddle before me, she asked when we would cross the
+bridge.  Then I told her the truth.
+
+"You see for yourself," said I, "what a dreadful place the bridge now
+is.  We are going to swim the river, ma petite, and in that way we
+shall cheat the Russians.  Now, cling to me with both your arms, and do
+not mind what happens.  Why should you be afraid?"
+
+She told me very proudly that she was not, and, calling to Valerie, I
+put my horse at the water.
+
+The place might have been some twenty yards from the first pontoon, and
+for awhile the good beast which carried me found ground for his feet.
+In those moments I could see how wise we had been to prefer the hazard
+of the water to that of the bridge.  Such a scene as was then taking
+place upon that frail structure has surely never been witnessed in all
+the story of His Majesty's wars.
+
+Pell-mell upon it went wagons and cannon and the terrified
+camp-followers.  Horsemen cut their way as though sabreing an enemy;
+women screamed with terror; the strong were dragged down with the weak;
+men trampled one another under foot without a thought of mercy.  The
+number of the dead and dying no man might estimate, and over these the
+living crawled as they could, the Russian shells falling ceaselessly
+amidst them, and the deadly bullets finding many a billet.
+
+All this I beheld as in some swift vision of horror, from which the
+eyes turned almost with gratitude to the fetid waters about me.  The
+swirling torrent, the crashing of the ice-floes, the bobbing corpses
+everywhere but fostered that pursuit of safety which now grew upon me
+as a fever.  I must win the opposite shore, I said, or all were lost.
+Let me but set foot upon those black slopes which were the goal of my
+desire and all were won by this supreme endeavour.  It was easy to be
+said, but how remote the hope of it!
+
+I should tell you that the darkness had now come down, and with it a
+return of the bitter cold.
+
+I had caught the child up with my left arm, and, giving the good horse
+his head, I felt the water strike me suddenly with a deadly chill, and
+heard Joan's shrill cry of horror as at length the current caught us
+and we were swept away into the vortex of the river.
+
+Now, indeed, we stood face to face with Death and felt his icy hand
+upon us.
+
+The screams of the dying upon the bridge, the thunder of the cannon,
+the moaning of the bullets--all were lesser sounds than that of the
+crashing ice and the roaring torrent as it threatened to engulf us.
+What had become of Valerie St. Antoine I knew not.  It seemed to me
+that I had been carried in an instant from human enemies to wage a
+combat with Nature omnipotent, before which I must perish.  The chill
+of the water, the freezing wind, the sleet which beat upon my face were
+the weapons with which this pitiless enemy would have conquered me.
+Nothing but the instincts of the gallant brute stood between me and the
+watery grave so many had found.  On he pressed and on, fighting as a
+human thing for the life no less precious to him than to us.  I saw
+dead men's eyes looking up at me from the black torrent; human arms,
+outstretched but lifeless, touched my flesh and set the child shrieking
+with terror.  The shells fell about us and the foam was as a blinding
+fountain in our eyes.  Yet ever the coveted shore seemed more distant,
+the sounds of human strife yet farther away, the world gone clean from
+our knowledge.  It is here, then, said I to myself, that Janil de
+Constant must die.  God knows that I would have welcomed death if it
+could have come quickly.
+
+Such were the episodes of that fateful crossing, through which the
+mercy of the Almighty alone brought us safely.
+
+I had given up all hope, when a sudden staggering of the horse, a cry
+from Joan, and another shout of triumph from the bank itself bade me
+look up and understand the wonder of the moment.  We had touched the
+shore--that shore of all our dreams, and found a footing there.
+Valerie herself, the water running from her boots, but her eyes
+triumphant and her arms outstretched, welcomed us with a woman's
+laughter and claimed the victory.
+
+We had crossed the Berezina!  The horrors of the bridge were done with
+for ever; we were amid our comrades, and yonder beyond the forgotten
+leagues stood Paris and our homes.
+
+
+VII
+
+We crossed the bog with safety and reached the first of the low hills
+on the hither shore.  Hardly had we done so when a loud explosion shook
+the very earth and caused us to wheel about suddenly.  Then we saw the
+bridge fall asunder, and knew that the thousands upon the far bank were
+doomed to death or the prison.  Such a cry as arose from our comrades
+yonder has never been heard, nor will be again, I believe, in all the
+story of the world.  It was the voice of the ultimate woe of those who,
+hoping much, now ceased to hope, and fearing, now feared the more.
+Many have accused the Emperor of wanton cruelty because of what he did
+on that November night.  Yet we, who served France, believed that he
+had done well, and we would have laid down our lives for him as readily
+had the honour of our country demanded it.
+
+Naturally, we said nothing to Joan of the meaning of this tragic event.
+Assuring her that Gabriel and her father would join us at dawn, we rode
+on to the first of the bivouacs, where, happily, we found a squadron of
+the fusiliers, under Colonel Bourgoriau, well known to me, and by him
+were instantly made welcome.  The Emperor, he told us, was camped at a
+farmhouse not a quarter of a mile from where we stood.  His Majesty was
+cold and suffering, and they had sent wood for his fires, badly as they
+needed it themselves.
+
+Here I left Valerie and the child, and, returning to the remnant of the
+bridge, I waited to see if any might yet be saved.  Alas! the stranded
+pontoons showed me but a heap of dying and dead, and some of them were
+in flames.  It may have been the mere fancy of a man whose courage had
+been sorely tried that day, but amongst those whom the swirling river
+carried away, and upon whose faces the leaping fires cast a golden
+aureole, I thought that I saw Gabriel the brave and the father who had
+loved him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE LAST REVIEW
+
+I
+
+The loss of the Grand Army at the River Berezina will never be fully
+told.
+
+All the world knows now that more than twelve thousand corpses were
+taken from the river when the ice melted in the spring; but this is to
+give no account of the many who were butchered by the Cossacks, and of
+the thousands of unhappy men, and women too, who went into the Russian
+prisons when the last of the bridges was blown up.
+
+We were a mere remnant that got away in safety.
+
+I have heard the number variously estimated, but in my own opinion no
+more than thirty thousand of those who marched to Moscow so proudly
+struggled on towards Kovno when the battle of the Berezina had been
+fought.
+
+At this time, too, we were so many hordes of miserable men rather than
+an army.  Many lost the road and wandered for weeks in the frozen
+wilderness.  Hardly a regiment preserved anything of its original
+formation; those that did so were inspired by loyalty to His Majesty
+the Emperor.  When he left us at Smorgoni on the morning of December
+5th and entrusted the command to Murat all order was finally done with.
+The Cossacks pursued us as sheep are hunted by wolves.  We struggled
+into Vilna to find the town plundered.  The mighty host which had set
+out to conquer Russia now rotted beneath the snows of the steppes we
+had crossed.
+
+It was every man for himself afterwards, as you can well imagine.  We
+made up little companies of friends and went together in the fashion of
+the East.  Naturally, Valerie St. Antoine was of my own party; and with
+the child Joan and my own nephew Leon we had Sergeant Bardot, who had
+been with us in the adventure at Moscow.  I have told you of the
+sergeant's adroitness, and we found him invaluable these later days.
+Where others starved he would plunder.  From a brawl at Vilna, when the
+stores were rifled, Gustav Bardot emerged with as many bottles of
+brandy as would have made a regiment drunk, and a supply of flour under
+which our horses staggered.  With this we set out almost gaily upon our
+journey to the Prussian frontier.  France seemed near to us now, though
+so many hundreds of leagues away.
+
+To be sure we lost the road frequently enough, and were yet to meet
+with some surprising adventures.  It is of one of the most curious of
+these that I am now about to write.
+
+
+II
+
+It was the second day after our leaving Kovno.
+
+We had slept in a stable in that unhappy town and there had fallen in
+with Sergeant Bardot and his plunder.
+
+I remember that it was a dreadful night, the roar of the wind almost
+drowning the sound of the distant artillery, which we believed to be
+fired at our rearguard by the Russians.  It has been said since that
+day that Marshal Ney himself fired the guns to drive the stragglers
+into the town.  I cannot tell you how it was, but I know that we all
+suffered very much, especially the child Joan, who mourned ceaselessly
+for her father and her brother.
+
+Next morning we set out for the bridge across the Niemen.  It was
+almost as great a press as that at the Berezina.  Happily, the Cossacks
+had not yet come up, and we got across at length to find an open
+country where there were few signs of an army marching.
+
+Very shortly afterwards we lost all track of the vanguard, and were
+mere stragglers with a few others upon a great white plain which the
+wind swept pitilessly.  That night we bivouacked in the barn of an
+ancient farmhouse which marauders had burned.  It was there that we
+determined to go our own way henceforth and not to rejoin the regiment
+until we came to Elbing.
+
+"Why should we?" old Bardot asked in his matter-of-fact way.  "There
+will be no fighting, my friends; and if there be, the marshal will take
+care of those fellows.  No one expects the Cossacks to cross the
+Niemen, and if they are wise they will now go back to their own
+country.  We have food enough for some days and our horses are good.
+Let us make a caravan as the Easterns do, and leave the rest to
+Providence."
+
+This was very sensible advice, and it fell upon willing ears.  We were
+a genial company, and if my nephew spent most of his hours in close
+converse with Valerie St. Antoine, at least I had the benefit of the
+sergeant's company.  As for little Joan, she rarely spoke to anyone;
+or, if she did, it was to raise again that fatal question of her
+father's whereabouts.  For all these reasons I deemed it wise to do as
+Bardot directed, and to seek a route of our own.  We should find the
+remnant of the army at Elbing; it would be time enough to think of
+re-formation when we arrived there.
+
+So behold us crossing those fearsome steppes, Valerie and Leon for our
+van, the sergeant and myself, with the child between us, talking of a
+thousand things which were to be done if ever we saw the city of Paris
+again.  We had come by this time to believe that we should do so, and
+despite the sufferings which we endured our courage remained unshaken.
+Alas! that it was so soon to be put to the proof.  We were hopelessly
+lost upon the evening of the third day, and knew no more than the dead
+whether we were marching to Elbing or to the sea.
+
+Remember that the heaven above us had been perpetually obscured by
+cloud and that the night showed us no stars.  The plain in itself was a
+vast sea of snow, broken rarely by clumps or pines and hardly showing
+us a house which had not been burned by the army on its outward march.
+From time to time, it is true, we espied little companies of stragglers
+in the far distance, or groups of horsemen poised upon a knoll; but of
+the high road we saw nothing, and gradually it began to dawn upon us
+that even Bardot's store was not inexhaustible, and that we must surely
+perish in this wild place unless we recovered the high road speedily.
+
+We slept that night in a dismal wood, listening to the howling of the
+wolves and but ill-protected by the snow-pit we had digged.  The others
+were merry enough save little Joan, whose strength could not support
+these hardships and for whose safety we were all tenderly solicitous.
+Fortunately, we had more than one great-coat of fur with us, and we
+made the child a bed in the snow as well as we could, and then fell to
+talking of our position.
+
+Old Bardot's plan clearly had broken down, and it remained to find
+another.  Should we waste the precious hours trudging northward on the
+chance that the high road lay there, or should we hold our course and
+risk the discovery of a town or village in our path?  Bardot was for
+the latter plan; Valerie for the former.
+
+"I have friends in Elbing," she said.  "Prince Nicholas visited the
+city frequently, and if we ever reach the town I am sure they will
+welcome me.  We cannot do wrong to go to the north, for the sea will
+soon tell us where we are.  Here it is a wilderness where none but
+madmen would remain."
+
+She looked at the sergeant as she spoke; and, in truth, there never had
+been much love lost between those two.  His defence of himself was lame
+but valiant.
+
+"We should have been pillaged upon the high road," he said truculently.
+"It was wiser to do as we have done."
+
+Her answer was that we had now nothing to pillage.  The argument
+threatened to grow heated when, to our great surprise, we heard the
+barking of a watch-dog, and, all springing to our feet, we discovered
+that the sound came from the far side of the wood and that a human
+habitation must be there.
+
+
+III
+
+Ten minutes later we were knocking at its door.  It proved to be a
+little farmhouse kept by Poles--a widow and two sons--and they were
+greatly alarmed when we waked them.  Our civilities presently obtained
+admittance, and we found ourselves in a long, low room with a wood fire
+burning brightly, and about it some evidence of an unexpected
+prosperity.  Fine skins decorated the walls of this mean habitation.
+There were guns in the corner by the chimney, and among them some
+French weapons obviously taken from our own soldiers.  A handsome
+drinking cup in silver stood upon a shelf which harboured good china;
+while a little shrine with candles denoted that the people were of the
+Catholic faith.
+
+I thought them all strikingly handsome; the lads were dark, with
+intelligent eyes; the old woman looked a picture of almost saintly
+sweetness and benignity.  With Valerie she was at home directly, and it
+was good to see the conquest which the French beauty made so quickly.
+
+The result of this was immediate.  We had not been in the farm ten
+minutes when the table was spread with viands and a bottle of French
+brandy set before us.  Of the sons, one waited upon us and the other
+went out, as the old woman said, to cut wood.  I thought it a little
+odd that he remained away so long, but the circumstance escaped my
+notice presently when rugs were spread upon the floor and our beds made
+ready.
+
+So weary were we all that we lay down upon the floor without any
+ceremony, and the last I remember before going to sleep were the
+whispers of Valerie and my nephew, who, I doubt not, were telling each
+other an ancient story.  When I awoke a light sound in the room
+disturbed me.  I sat up and looked about me, bewildered by the
+flickering rays of the ebbing fire and uncertain for the moment where I
+was.
+
+We all experience this in strange places, but a soldier usually is not
+at a loss.  Upon this occasion, whether it were the unusual aspect of
+the room, the circumstances of our bivouac, or the treacherous
+firelight, I cannot tell you, but moments passed before I remembered
+our coming to the house at all.
+
+To this there succeeded a sense of alarm and of a peril I could not
+define.  I thought that I was in a prison, and the Cossacks were my
+jailers.  The fitful light upon the floor showed red and ghastly, and
+suggested the blood of dead comrades.  I started up, pressing my hands
+to my eyes and prepared for any ignominy, when, as in a flash, the
+whole scene was recalled, and I remembered both the room and the Poles.
+At the same instant the fire, leaping into flame, showed me the figure
+of Valerie, and I could have sworn that she was about to quit the
+apartment.  This was not so.  She made a sign to me, and I perceived
+immediately that it was one which warned me to be silent.
+
+Naturally, all this astonished me very much, for I had expected to find
+her fast asleep.  And yet here she was, sword in hand, standing by the
+door as though an enemy had knocked upon it.  Stepping over the
+sleeping figures of Bardot and my nephew, I asked her in a whisper what
+had happened.
+
+"The Pole has not returned," she said.  "I heard a sound of footsteps
+on the snow--many of them.  We must lock the door; there is danger."
+
+With this she swung over the great bar of iron, and it fell softly into
+its place.  If I had any doubt of the wisdom of what she did, a quick
+glance about the apartment would have set it at rest.  Neither the old
+woman herself nor the younger son were where they had been last night.
+Moreover, a sound of footsteps was now audible beyond all question.  It
+was evident that the house was surrounded and that these cunning people
+had betrayed us.
+
+A kick from my foot woke old Bardot, and Leon started up directly the
+sergeant moved.  The briefest words told them what had happened; and,
+still yawning, they stretched out their hands and felt in the straw for
+their swords.  Our muskets had been piled up in the corner with those
+of the young men, but it was soon apparent that they had been pillaged
+while we slept, for a purpose we could readily imagine.  We had only
+the pistols, of which no occasion robbed us, and our first care was to
+prime them before going to the window.  It was well that we did so.
+Hardly had Bardot thrown open the casement when bullets hailed into the
+room, and the china came crashing down like slates from a penthouse
+when the wind is high.  This was a pretty business, to be sure--the
+last kind of welcome we had expected when we fell asleep by the fire.
+
+"To the door!" cried I, as the shots rang out.  We all were down on our
+marrow bones in a twinkling, protected by the great wooden doors and
+the bolt we had drawn.  It was plain to me that no bullet would pierce
+the wood of the door, and that those who were after us must come in by
+the windows.  The greater mystery remained--who were the bandits who
+attacked us in this headlong way, and what was their number?  That they
+were not Cossacks I felt sure, for soldiers would have known how to
+take us in our sleep, and the rest had been easy.  Were they the
+wretched moujiks, so many of whom armed themselves against the wounded
+of the Grand Army when it fled from Russia?  Or were they the real
+bandits of the steppes?  We answered the question when a bearded
+brigand, waving a gardener's hoe, appeared at the window and slashed at
+us with the gleaming steel.  This man I shot dead directly he showed
+his face.  It was evident that he was but a peasant after all, and that
+we had his fellows to deal with.
+
+I say that I shot him dead; but the respite was brief enough.  No
+sooner had the man fallen than his place was taken by others, all armed
+with the most barbarous weapons, but no less zealous for our blood.
+Under any other circumstance the scene must have been droll enough.
+Here were we four with our backs to the great door, the latticed
+windows, by which the assassins tried to enter, upon either side of us.
+Frightened by the death of their comrade, they now resorted to a
+primitive attempt to harpoon us, as though we had been so many fish in
+a sea.  It was ridiculous to watch the hairy arms thrust in at the
+window, while scythes or pikes or bayonets on sticks were turned
+menacingly toward us and their owners bayed like dogs after quarry.
+
+Happily, our position enabled us to treat this puny assault with
+derision.  We were beyond the reach of their harpoons, and we neglected
+no opportunity to retaliate.  More than one of the assassins lost his
+hand or his arm by a swift cut from the swords we knew so well how to
+use.  This was satisfactory enough, but it carried us nowhere, and
+behind it all there lay the real apprehension that these monsters would
+force the window presently and butcher us as though we had been sheep.
+Hundreds of our comrades had so perished since we left Krasnoe.  Wild
+creatures, more like gorillas than men, had come out of the woods with
+their scythes roped to sticks and had slashed and maimed the wounded
+without grace or pity.  And here we were dealing with the same kind of
+villains, but, happily, neither wounded nor frightened by them.  If any
+secret anxiety had accompanied the first moments of this amazing
+encounter, it was for little Joan d'Izambert, who still lay upon the
+far side of the room and had been forbidden by me to join us.  I saw
+that the heavy table protected her from bullets, and bidding her lie
+still, I turned my attention to the window.  It was time truly.
+Someone had now pushed a musket through the casement, and, aiming at
+hazard, the roar of the discharge shook everything in the apartment.
+This was the turn we had not anticipated.  It needed all our wits now
+to slash at the barrels as they were poised by unseen hands, and
+nothing but the greatest agility saved our lives at such a crisis.
+
+This was all very well, but you will soon see that it could not
+continue.  Four of us there were to slash at the guns, but many outside
+to direct them; and presently my poor friend Bardot uttered a low cry
+and fell in the straw at my side.
+
+"I am done for," said he, and instantly he fainted.
+
+The success redoubled the fury of those without.  Heads were seen at
+the window again; there was a new and more savage onslaught with the
+pikes; the door itself began to tremble under the thud of axes.  I
+believed then that we were done for, and I am sure that the others were
+of my opinion.  Let the door fall, and we should be cut to pieces.  No
+hope of plunder animated these savages, but that insensate hatred of
+the invader by which our poor fellows had suffered so much already.
+They lusted for our blood, and that alone would satisfy them.
+
+Surely this was a very terrible moment.  The blows of the axes seemed
+to number the moments we had to live.  Convinced now that they would
+not get us by the windows, but that the door must be forced, the
+wretches had drawn off and concentrated all their fury upon these
+ancient beams.  Happily for us, the man who built the house was himself
+a child of the wilderness, and his life, no less than ours, may have
+depended many a time upon the stoutness of his portals.  The door
+withstood the attack, though the very walls shook with the fury of it.
+We could do nothing but crouch there and wait, hope almost dead, the
+promise of the day but a mockery.  When to this we heard a cry of
+"Fire!"--for that was a word every French soldier had learned in
+Moscow--then we understood and believed that it was the end.  They were
+going to burn us out.  The cries of the old woman whose house they
+would have fired moved them not at all.  "Fire!" they yelled; and we
+could hear them running hither and thither--a savage horde mad in its
+lust for blood.
+
+We had uttered few words until this time; and, as for that, a man could
+hardly have heard himself speak in the room.  Now, however, we knew an
+instant of respite, and it was then that Valerie proposed that we
+should open the doors.
+
+"Anything is better than this," she said.  "Courage may find the
+horses--who knows?"
+
+The suggestion was wise, and I fell in with it readily.
+
+"Let Leon go first and do you follow him," said I.  "The child shall
+come with me."
+
+And at that I stooped over my poor Bardot and perceived that he was
+indeed dead.  The prospect of dying out there in the open was less
+horrible than that of being cooped up in this miserable house, which
+presently must become a furnace; and who could say what these wretches
+might do or not do when confronted by soldiers of the Guard?  The
+resolution hardly was taken when we lifted the bolt and threw the great
+doors wide open.  "En avant!" cries Leon, rushing out with his sword
+flashing.  Then he laughed drolly.  Not a moujik was to be seen; not a
+voice to be heard.  A sound of approaching sleigh bells alone broke in
+upon the silence of the night.
+
+
+IV
+
+Well, we all stood there to listen--our swords in our hands, our ears
+bent.  A miracle had happened, and our enemies were fled.  None of us,
+if it were not the child, understood the reality of the peril we had
+escaped, or surrendered to that revulsion of feeling natural to the
+circumstance.  Little Joan, however, shed childish tears and was upon
+her knees giving thanks in an instant.  The rest of us looked at her
+somewhat ashamed; our faith remained shaken.  Beyond that, old Bardot
+was dead.  I think we remembered the fact even when our own delivery
+tempted us to rejoice.
+
+But was it delivery?
+
+I have told you that the sound of twinkling sleigh-bells arrested our
+attention.  Minute by minute they grew louder; we heard the thud of
+hoofs upon the snow, and presently we discerned a troop of horsemen
+approaching at a trot, and amidst them a sleigh of unusual size drawn
+by no fewer than four horses abreast.  This unexpected company made
+straight for the house, and drew rein only at its door.  Who they were,
+or what country, whether friend or enemies, the wan light forbade us to
+say.  Their master evidently rode in the sleigh, and no sooner had it
+pulled up than he sprang out upon the snow and in a twinkling was
+doffing his hat to Valerie St. Antoine.  Such a merry old gentleman I
+had not met in Russia.  Verily he did not cease to smile from the
+moment his troop first surrounded us until that other moment, less
+pleasing, when we were trussed like fowls and thrust headlong into
+other sleighs which followed in his wake.
+
+Surely this was the most surprising adventure we had yet experienced in
+Russia.
+
+Here was a merry old gentleman who knew nothing of us, but whose mere
+presence had scattered the moujiks like chaff; here was he riding up to
+the wretched house; clapping eyes upon Valerie and the child; hustling
+them headlong into his own sleigh; nodding to his troopers to fall upon
+us and carrying us away as though we were so many sheep for the block.
+Never have I known such a surprise.  I could have laughed aloud at the
+irony of it when my nephew and I found ourselves upon our backs in a
+wretched coracle and heard the crack of the whips which hurried us on
+to a Russian prison.  Assuredly there could be no other destination.
+We admitted as much to each other without any preface at all.
+
+"They will be the Polish lancers from Orcha," said Leon.  "I suppose
+the old man is one of their princes.  Devilish unlucky, upon my word,
+mon oncle; we had done better with the peasants."
+
+I told him that it was possible.  The same thought was in both our
+minds.  What of Valerie and the child?  That the old man had been
+bewitched by Valerie's beauty there was no doubt whatever.  Every
+gesture, every look marked him as a libertine from the moment when he
+first clapped eyes upon her until he had dragged her into his sledge
+and the horses had gone off at a gallop.  Leon knew this as well as I,
+and his anger was a dreadful thing to see.
+
+"I will shoot him like a dog, so help me God!" he said.  And he
+strained with the strength of an ox to burst the ropes which bound him.
+
+He might as well have tried to break a tree asunder.  We were bound
+hand and foot, as though we had been the meanest of criminals.  Our
+escort was a troop of some eighty men armed with lances and muskets,
+and plainly showing that they had their orders.  There remained but the
+idle speculation upon that which must come after.  Would this old man
+butcher us, fearing our tongues, or would he hand us over to the
+Cossacks at the first station we came to?  We could not tell; the
+humiliation of our defeat was beyond all words insupportable, and our
+wrists bled with our efforts to free them.  Valerie was in this man's
+power, and she had but us to look to.  I could not have suffered more
+had my own sister's honour been at stake.
+
+"The opportunity is not here," said I to Leon; "but it may come.  Words
+will not help us.  Take my advice and feign submission; it is better
+than being butchered.  We shall not help Valerie that way.  Let us
+remember what we have to do, and not act like children."
+
+His answer was a frenzied outburst of rage which appalled me.  So loud
+was it that the escort derided him, and the driver slashed back at him
+with his whip.  When it had passed I perceived the old Leon, whose wit
+was quick even under such an emergency.  He lay back upon the boards of
+the sleigh and feigned sleep.
+
+Day was breaking then, and a dim sun seeking to shine.  The country
+itself was the same God-forsaken wilderness that we had trod these many
+days.  No man at the heart of the ocean could have discerned an horizon
+more hopeless.  Everywhere the snow and the whitened pines and the
+ultimate desolation.  Man seemed to have fled the wretched farms we
+passed.  Once upon the horizon we saw a troop of horsemen, but they
+disappeared from our view immediately.  It was not until nightfall
+approached that we came without warning upon an unspeakable village,
+and this grim procession halted.
+
+Here we saw the merry old gentleman's sleigh again, but it was now
+empty and obviously being driven to a stable.  We ourselves, lifted by
+brawny arms, were hurled headlong into the cellar of a filthy inn, and
+there unbound and left for many hours in darkness.  When the door next
+was opened the sergeant of the troop appeared carrying a lantern and a
+mess of mutton and potatoes.  To our astonishment he greeted us in the
+German tongue, and seemed to have come upon a mission of
+reconciliation.  Speaking in his master's name he apologised for what
+had happened to us.
+
+"His Excellency regrets that you have been treated with so little
+ceremony," he said; "but, meine Herren, he has suffered much at the
+hands of your countrymen, and is in no mood for civilities.  You were
+lucky to find him in a good humour.  Give me your parole that you will
+make no attempt to escape, and he will carry you to Elbing and leave it
+with the general in command there to say what shall be done with you.
+Otherwise, I fear that you will not go to Elbing at all."  And he
+looked at us as one who shall say, "In that case he will deal with you
+here and now."
+
+"As his Excellency pleases," said I.  "If he prefers the Russians at
+Elbing to settle this affair, we are in his hands.  But let him know
+that I am a surgeon upon His Majesty's staff, and that my nephew here
+is of the Guard.  I think your master will be wise to remember that
+when the time comes."
+
+The fellow said that our message should be delivered, and leaving the
+light with us, he withdrew and bolted the trap of the cellar behind
+him.  His intimation that we were to go to Elbing seemed odd, and I
+could make little of it, nor Leon for that matter.
+
+"With any luck we should find the marshal and the rear-guard there,"
+said I.  "On the other hand, if there has been an action and the
+Russians have taken Elbing, God help us.  The old man must have heard
+something of the kind, or he would never be going there.  What do you
+make of it, nephew?  Was I wise to give him the parole, or should we
+have held our tongues?"
+
+Leon was altogether at a loss.
+
+"I am thinking of Valerie," said he.  "Good God, what a thing to
+happen!  All this would have been very different if we had remained
+with the army, mon oncle.  Undoubtedly there has been a battle and
+Marshal Ney has been beaten.  We shall find the Cossacks in Elbing, and
+God help us, as you say!"
+
+Then he added very solemnly, "There is only one thing to hope, that I
+may yet meet this merry old gentleman.  Let him look to himself if I
+do, for by the God above me I will kill him like a sheep."
+
+The woman dictated his frenzy, and who could wonder?  For myself, I had
+an extraordinary confidence in the wit of Valerie St. Antoine and was
+ready to match it against that of any old dotard in Russia.  At the
+same time it was impossible to forget her situation--here in this
+cursed wilderness, alone amid a troop of savages and with no prospect
+at the far end of it but that of an unnameable submission.  Naturally I
+said nothing of this to my nephew, nor encouraged his wild notion that
+we might escape from the cellar.  They had caught us in the trap, and
+nothing but a miracle could get us out.  Beyond that we had given our
+paroles, and well done or ill, the attempt to break them at such an
+hour would have been madness.  So we slept upon it, and were awakened
+at dawn to be told that the sledges were ready.
+
+We found a fine sunny morning and a dingy street full of gaping
+moujiks.  Of the merry old gentleman, however, we heard nothing; nor
+had we any word from Valerie or the child.  Our own escort was as it
+had been yesterday, a troop of Lithuanians well clad and armed, and
+apparently immune to the severities of the weather.  Satisfied with our
+parole, they indicated our places in the sledge and made no attempt to
+bind us, and presently we all set out with a rattle of accoutrements
+and a tinkle of bells which would have been pleasant music had the
+circumstances permitted.
+
+Soon it was plain that we were not very distant from the sea, and we
+travelled all that day towards the south-east as I judged.  When night
+fell the spires of Elbing came to view upon the horizon, and a little
+after dusk we drew near to the city.
+
+"And now," said I to Leon, "we shall know."
+
+I did not add that it seemed a thousand chances to one against any hope
+of our ever seeing the French frontier again.
+
+
+V
+
+It was nearly ten o'clock at night when we entered the city.  There
+were few people in its streets, and save some German hussars and a
+troop of dragoons, whose uniform was unknown to me, I saw no troops.
+The hope that the remnant of the Grand Army had marched in was,
+therefore, shattered.
+
+It may have been that we had come after our comrades had left.  This
+was a very unpleasant supposition, which I feared to speak of, though
+Leon was quick to remember it.
+
+"The fellows appear to have been speaking the truth," said he gloomily,
+as he looked at the silent house and wondered, I doubt not, which of
+them sheltered Valerie.  "The marshal has been beaten, and we shall see
+no more Frenchmen in Elbing, mon oncle.  What then?  What are they
+going to do with us?"
+
+I confessed my inability to answer.  The Poles were our allies, and it
+was inconceivable that we should suffer a mischief at their hands.
+Nevertheless, these were strange times, and God knows how little any
+man could be relied upon where French soldiers were concerned.  If we
+had not misjudged the merry old gentleman our presence in Elbing could
+not but be inconvenient to him.  I perceived this immediately, though I
+forbore to speak of it.
+
+"We must carry it with a high hand," said I; "nothing will be done here
+by submission.  Remember that we are of His Majesty's Guard, and let us
+take insults from no man quietly."
+
+Leon smiled in his old way.
+
+"To do you justice, mon oncle," said he, "that is not your habit."
+
+The words were hardly spoken when the sledge stopped, and looking up, I
+saw the gates of the prison frowning upon us.  So this was our merry
+friend's hospitality!  Even my nephew perceived the drift of it now.
+
+"The old rascal will trump up some charge against us and keep us out of
+the way," said he.  "By God, mon oncle, this is too much!  Parole or no
+parole, I mean to make a run for it."
+
+I dissuaded him, pointing out the folly of it in the presence of the
+escort.
+
+"Do not give them the satisfaction of shooting you," said I.  "We have
+money with us, and will make ourselves heard.  This is neither the
+place nor the time."
+
+And so saying, I stepped out of the sledge and followed the captain of
+the hussars into the courtyard of the prison.  Truly was it a
+remarkable predicament for two of the Guard to be in.
+
+This scene will always remain in my memory.  Even to-day I can recall
+every detail of it, the square courtyard, the guard-room upon the
+left-hand side, the inner gate with its portcullis and the gloomy
+buildings of the prison beyond.  The astonishing thing was that we
+seemed to be expected, and all preparations were made to receive us.
+No sooner were we brought in and the gates shut than they conducted us
+to the guard-room and there brought us before a young captain of the
+garrison, who immediately made known the alleged reason of our arrest.
+
+"You are accused of rendering help to the Emperor's enemies and of
+robbing French soldiers in this vicinity," said he.  "The information
+is laid by Herrn Immo von Gustorf, the prefect of this city.  The court
+will try you as soon as it can be constituted.  Meanwhile I am to hold
+you here, as prisoners."
+
+It was an amazing declaration, and even the young man seemed surprised
+when he looked at us.  A soldier does not require to be told that
+another is of the same profession, and the young captain must already
+have perceived our condition.  When upon this came my heated protest,
+and Leon's fiery threats, I could see that suspicion gave place to an
+apprehension which was very real.
+
+"Herr Captain," said I, "your charge is preposterous.  We wear His
+Majesty's uniform, and such crimes as you name are beneath us.  Let me
+warn you very seriously of the consequences of that which you are about
+to do.  His Majesty is careful of the reputation of his Guard, and he
+will know how to deal with such an outrage as this."
+
+The threat moved him not at all.  He declared that he but did his duty.
+
+"If you are innocent, gentlemen," said he, "you can prove it to the
+court.  My duty is to keep you here until you are tried.  I may say,
+however, that if I can be of service to you in other ways, you have
+only to command me.  This is not a house of hospitalities, but such as
+I can procure shall be offered to you."
+
+To this I answered civilly that we were very much obliged to him, and
+bidding Leon hold his tongue, I said that we should remember any
+service of the kind when the French rode in--upon which I looked at him
+closely to see what he would make of it.  When he did not contradict
+me, then I knew that the story of Marshal Ney's defeat was a lie, and
+for the first time since we had met the merry old gentleman I began to
+hope.
+
+The young captain, meanwhile, had caught up a lantern and set out to
+cross the yard.  We followed him to a tower on the eastern side, where
+in a considerable apartment upon the first floor he told us that we
+must be prepared to spend the night.
+
+"I will send you what supper I can," said he.  "Food is not readily to
+be had in Elbing; there has been no bread for three days.  None the
+less, I will do what I can, messieurs."  And setting the lantern upon
+the table, he commanded the sergeant to have beds made ready for us.
+
+When he was gone and the door bolted, we began to examine the apartment
+with the eager eyes of men who did not submit to adversity readily.
+Would our wits get us out of this cursed hole, or must we suffer the
+tragic farce to the end?  Alas, it was soon evident that any hope of
+escape was out of the question.  Not only were the windows grilled
+heavily with iron, but they looked upon a moat, whose further wall must
+have been thirty feet high, while beyond it stood a rampart patrolled
+by sentries.  The door itself should have withstood artillery.  We
+could dare nothing here, and we sat down in the dim light to remember
+that Valerie St. Antoine and Joan d'Izambert were still the "guests" of
+the villain who had entrapped us.
+
+"There is only one chance," says Leon; "we are lost if the army does
+not come in."
+
+I knew it to be true; but even if it were so, what then?  Would our
+comrades learn of our pitiable condition?  I could hardly believe it,
+and my heart sank low.  Odd that we had marched so many thousands of
+leagues and had lived through the terrible days to come to such a
+judgment as this.
+
+
+VI
+
+They brought us a supper of mutton and rice and a bottle of gin about
+the hour of ten o'clock, and then they spread our beds upon the bare
+stone floor.  These were of heavy blankets with a rude mattress beneath
+them.  But they were beds for all that, and under any other
+circumstances they would have been a luxury.  This night, however, we
+regarded them with indifference.  Our brains were fired and our ears
+awake.  Who would have slept under circumstances so tragic?
+
+Perchance the impotence of our condition added to its bitterness.  If
+we could have struck a blow in the cause; have buckled on our swords
+and gone out to deal with the merry old gentleman and his satellites,
+it would have been different: but to sit in that gloomy room, to hear
+the city's bells numbering the hours, to count the footsteps of the
+sentries and to pray for dawn--that was a torture beyond compare.
+
+Not a mouthful of food had Leon eaten that day, nor could I persuade
+him to touch the mess they offered us.  He spoke of Valerie always,
+delighting to remind me of the day when he had first seen her in Prince
+Nicholas's palace; or of that night when she had saved us at the tower,
+and of her courage during the dreadful days--indeed, of a thousand
+things which a lover had seen but older eyes had missed.  To all of
+which I could but answer indifferently.
+
+"She is clever," I would say.  "She will know how to deal with your
+merry old gentleman."  When he asked if we knew how to deal with him,
+there was nothing more to be said.  The grim walls of the prison
+answered him; the chime of the distant bells was an irony.
+
+So the night sped on.  For an hour, I think about twelve o'clock, I
+flung myself upon the wretched bed and slept fitfully.  My head was in
+a whirl, and vain dreams tormented me.  At one time I thought that we
+had leapt down into the moat and that the icy water choked us.  At
+another I was riding proudly into Elbing at the head of the Velites.
+Upon this there came the voice of many crying "Vive l'Empereur!" and
+"Vive la France!"  I heard a great rolling of drums and the welcome
+blare of trumpets.  This roused me thoroughly, and sitting up I saw
+that Leon was standing at the window and that the dream indeed had come
+true.
+
+"Good God!" cried I.  "What is it?  What do you hear, Leon?"
+
+He answered me, still standing there.
+
+"The French are in the city, mon oncle.  Listen to that!"
+
+His voice echoed a triumph which thrilled me.  Instantly I was at his
+side listening to the familiar sounds.  Never did the roll of a drum
+fall so pleasantly upon a man's ear.
+
+"We are saved," said I, though heaven knows the hope of it was still
+but a dream.
+
+
+VII
+
+Well, we stood there for a full hour, speculating upon what we should
+do to get the news to our comrades.  Certainly we might have bribed the
+jailers if any had come to the tower.  Not a sound, however, disturbed
+the serenity of the prison.  Our attempt to attract the attention of
+the sentries by smashing the lantern against the glass of the windows
+ended but in ignominious derision.  The fellows never noticed us, and
+another hour must have passed before the door of the cell was opened
+and the young captain entered.  I perceived immediately that he had
+come to tell us the news.  His manner was obsequious to the point of
+ridicule.
+
+"Messieurs," he said, "I am to take you immediately to the prefect's
+house."
+
+Upon which he uttered a word of command and a dozen men with lanterns
+appeared upon the narrow staircase.
+
+It was a new turn and we knew not what to make of it.  Evidently the
+merry old gentleman desired still to have us in his power, and the
+prospect of finding ourselves alone with him was far from reassuring.
+So much the young captain perceived and hastened to remove our
+apprehensions.
+
+"Messieurs," he said, "you have nothing to fear.  The prefect has
+discovered his mistake and is anxious to apologise.  You will be wise
+to take advantage of so favourable an opportunity.  As for myself, I
+have done my duty.  You will remember that when you make a report of
+this affair to his Excellency the marshal."
+
+We promised that we would do so.  It was evident, upon reflection, that
+no mischief could come to us now that the French were in the city, and
+curiosity alone would have sent us to the prefect's house.
+
+The latter proved to be hardly a stone's throw from the prison walls.
+We were driven there in the same sledge which had carried us to Elbing,
+and, being arrived at the _conciergerie_, were immediately admitted and
+conducted into a spacious hall, blazing with lights and superb in the
+richness of its decoration.  Here, to our astonishment, Valerie herself
+received us.
+
+I will not dwell upon the manner of her meeting with Leon, nor upon the
+amazement with which I beheld her in this situation.  No magic of
+wonderland could have wrought such a change in men's condition as we
+then experienced when they carried us from the gloom of the prison to
+this princely mansion.
+
+"Where is his Excellency the prefect?" I asked her when we had embraced
+for the twentieth time.
+
+She told me in a word.
+
+"Many miles from Elbing," says she.  "I am mistress here.  I have told
+him he must not be found in the city while the French are here."
+
+"Good God," cried I, "what a turn about!"
+
+Miraculous indeed it was that so young a girl had won so astonishing a
+victory.  The coming of the French saved her and us.  There was not a
+more frightened man in Prussia than the prefect, who fled directly
+French bugles blared at the gates.  So much Valerie told us while she
+led us in and showed us the banquet she had prepared for us.
+
+
+VIII
+
+We lived gallantly at the prefect's expense during the days we spent in
+Elbing.  They were happy days, and yet what regrets attended them!  Of
+all the six hundred thousand who had set out so bravely from Moscow but
+a few short months ago, there were but twenty-two thousand of us,
+soldiers of the line and of the Guard--worn, weary, and ragged men--who
+survived to reach that haven.
+
+Never shall I forget that last review when the marshal himself rode up
+and down our battered ranks and told us that our troubles were at an
+end.  Henceforth we were to be carried in sledges to the French
+frontier and our homes.  The day of battle was over; the night of our
+sorry victory had been won.
+
+
+
+
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