The Great White Army

by Max Pemberton

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. Léon 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 Vélites 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 Léon 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 café 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, Léon 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 Léon 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 Léon, 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, à la guerre comme à 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. Léon 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 Léon 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 Léon'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. Léon'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 Léon 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.

Léon 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 Léon at the same moment; and, listening, I heard the muffled thunder of hoofs upon the snow.

"Would they be our own men?" I asked him.

He shook his head.

"We must be five leagues from the high road. Which of our fellows would come this way?"

I could not answer that, and had no need to, for hardly were the words spoken when a troop of Cossacks appeared at a gallop, and instantly the wolves closed in about them. This was a fine sight, and one I never shall forget. To watch those dashing horsemen hewing and firing and slashing at the pack about them, to wonder why they thus rode desperately, to speculate upon their destination, were all in the mind's task as the picture unfolded. Were we the pursued, or had they other quarry? Certainly they would not have to look far for us, for there in their track upon the snow lay our saddles and bridles, at which the famished brutes still gnawed.

Now, it occurred to me that they must certainly discover us, and that our shrift would be short. The beasts themselves, scared by the thunder of the sounds, broke presently and fled to the woods whence they had come. The Cossacks rode up to the very place where our bridles lay, and yet they did not halt. What drove them thence? I will tell you in a word—the Red Hussars of our own Guard were at their heels, hunting them as though they were vermin of the woods, and cutting them down without pity like wheat that falls before a sickle.

Ah! what a sight that was to see. What sounds were those to hear—the shrieks of the poor devils whose skulls were cleaved, the cries of triumph of the victorious pursuers—they were music in our ears. Yet saner men would have asked how this majesty of war would help us. But five minutes had passed when pursued and pursuers were gone as they had come, and we were alone again. The situation had changed but in this—that no wolf now yapped about that wattled hut. We climbed from its window, and went out through the wood without fear. We were alone, and far from salvation. At least, we thought so for a full hour, until a second troop of the Red Hussars appeared in the open, and we hailed them joyfully.

Then, indeed, was the end of the story written, and then we knew that we should see our comrades again.

IX

We returned to the bivouac of the Vélites that night, and there told our story. Many mourned the gallant Payard, but there were others who asked of Madame Pauline. What had happened to her after we had fled from the camp? We could not answer the question then, but I answered it in the following June in Paris, when I met her in the Rue de Rivoli and recognised her instantly. A fine woman, messieurs, and one who is a very good judge of a dinner, believe me.