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The Great White Army

by Max Pemberton · English · Gutenberg #35540 · 412,803 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Great White Army

Author: Max Pemberton


        
Release date: March 10, 2011 [eBook #35540]
                Most recently updated: January 7, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35540

Credits: Produced by Al Haines


*** START OF THE 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, in

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