The Great White Army

by Max Pemberton

CHAPTER VI

THE WITCH IN ERMINE

I

I have spoken little of the Emperor during these momentous days; but it is to be remembered that I was chiefly with the rearguard, and so I hardly saw His Majesty until we came to Slawkowo.

Often have I been asked in Paris how he carried himself during the terrible retreat from Moscow, and how it came to be that he escaped the fate which overtook nearly half a million of men in that fearful flight. I have always answered that the Emperor took his fair share both of the risks and the hardships of the journey, and that, so far from travelling in his famous berline, he was often afoot, walking with and encouraging the soldiers who had served him so well.

It is true that he never suffered the miseries of an open bivouac, and that, wherever we went, some habitation was discovered at night to shelter him and the intimate members of his staff. Food, also, he had in abundance, and often shared it with his staff. What he could not escape was the peril of the Cossacks, who swarmed upon our flanks like wasps, and rarely left us an hour in which we could march with confidence.

Some there are who say that Napoleon Bonaparte was entirely without pity for his fellow men. I have seen it recorded that he marched over the dying and the dead with indifference, and was even heard to say that no man who had seen so many corpses upon a high road could ever believe in the immortality of the soul. This must be a malicious invention of his enemies, and it would not be accepted by any soldiers of the Guard. The Emperor suffered as we suffered during those unforgettable days, and more than one man could tell of the pity bestowed upon him by the general for whom he would so willingly have died.

II

Let me give you an instance of what befell us when we were some leagues from Smolensk and were approaching the village of Liadoui.

The Emperor had ridden out of the town that morning escorted by the grenadiers and the chasseurs, Prince Eugène with General Davoust and Ney being left behind in charge of the rearguard.

I myself set out with the Vélites about an hour after His Majesty had left, upon a road whereon familiar scenes were soon to be encountered.

The army had got no food in Smolensk, and its sufferings began again directly we reached the open country. Just as heretofore, men fell out and perished before the eyes of their helpless comrades. Some would stagger for a little while like drunken men, stretching out their arms to us and craving pity; others went mad in their delirium, and I remember well with what horror we saw a dragoon gnawing madly at the neck of a frozen horse, while his lips were red with his own blood. To all this we had now become inured, and, knowing the impossibility of helping the poor wretches who succumbed, we could but shut pity from our hearts and bend our heads to the bitter wind which swept over this God-forsaken land.

It was during this march that I came up with the Emperor, who had been riding with the grenadiers and was now halted in a picturesque group near by the edge of a thicket.

Here we found a poor woman whose baby was but two days old, and who mourned the loss of this infant—frozen stark dead—as though she had been at her own home in Paris. She was a cantinière of the fusiliers, and her husband, an old soldier who had fought at Jena, did what he could for her; but it was all of no avail, and despite His Majesty's command that I myself should attend her and that she should be given of the best from the Imperial supplies, she expired in the snow before our eyes.

The Emperor was greatly affected by this distressing occurrence, and when he saw that the poor woman was dead he commanded me to accompany him, intimating that there was hardly a surgeon left in his entourage. This compliment pleased me very much, remembering how we had parted, and I rode by His Majesty's side for some leagues, telling him all that I had seen and done since we quitted Moscow. What surprised me particularly was that he made no mention of Mademoiselle Valerie, nor of her visit to him at Slawkowo and of the episode which had led up to it. It was his wont, however, thus to treat the officers he liked best, and if I had been doubtful of his favour on that occasion, I could take heart when he pinched my ear suddenly as we came to the village of Liadoui and said with a smile: "You will remain with me to-night, major; I have something very much in your line."

This was a quite unexpected compliment, and brought the blood to my cheeks. I could not readily imagine upon what service His Majesty would employ me, but I spent the day in anxious speculation, and when he summoned me at about nine o'clock that night I was all agog, as you may well imagine.

Why had I been thus chosen, and what was the employment?

You shall see now how very strange an affair it turned out to be.

III

The village of Liadoui is built of wood upon an open situation not many leagues from Krasnoë. The Emperor slept at the post-house, a modest edifice which two companies of the fusiliers were to guard. I myself got a bivouac with the priest, who needed more than one blow from the butt end of a musket before he was glad to see me. The whole situation of the little force in Liadoui would have been considered dangerous at any other time, but we had to take the best we could, and the fact that there were Russians on both flanks had ceased to trouble us while we could get food and shelter.

For the first time now for many a day I got a dish of beef and rice that night, and a bottle of wine to wash it down. This His Majesty sent me from his own table, and be sure I shared it with my comrades. We were in consequence quite a happy company, and we sang "Veillons au salut de l'Empire" as merrily as we might have done in the barracks at Paris. Then came His Majesty's summons for Major Constant to attend him at once; and quitting my comrades with reluctance, I put on the great fur coat which I had carried from Moscow, and went across to the post-house.

Much to my surprise I found the Emperor alone. He sat in a spacious room overlooking the street, and the remains of his dinner were still upon the table. Clad in the well-known grey overcoat and the little cocked hat, without which none of us would have recognised him, I perceived also that he had a heavy cape of fur about his shoulders and wore fur-topped boots almost to his hips. He seemed mightily pleased to see me, and, pouring out a glass of wine, he bade me drink it.

"Do you remember this place?" he asked me as the first question.

I told him that the Vélites had not passed that way before, having taken the northern road to Moscow. He, however, hardly waited for my answer, but, watching me drink the wine, he said:

"I see that you do not know it. That is to the good; you will not ask me unnecessary questions. Now drink your wine and come and see your patient. She is young—you will not object to that. The Vélites, I understand, are critical; it is for that reason I chose a surgeon from your ranks."

He laughed as though pleased at the jest. Buttoning the fur cape closely about him, he left the room immediately, and I followed him, the wine freezing upon my moustache as soon as we were out in the bitter night.

Never have I known a cold so intense nor a wind that shrivelled the flesh so quickly. Yet the scene itself was picturesque enough, and under any other circumstances a man might have stopped to marvel at it. The moon now shone full and clear from a cloudless sky; the trees about Liadoui glistened with a thousand diamonds of the frost; the snow beneath our feet was as hard as iron and burnished with a sheen of silver light. Imagine upon this wooden houses with all their windows aglow, dark forms moving here and there, the distant rumble of cannon upon the road, and even the echo of musket shots, and you will see the picture as I saw and remember it.

Whither was the Emperor going, and upon what errand? I could not so much as imagine his purpose when we quitted the post-house and, crossing the street, entered upon a narrow footpath which seemed about to lead to the neighbouring forest. The peril of such a journey, with the Cossacks all about us and the night hawks everywhere, would have been patent to a child, and it even amazed an old soldier like myself, who could but marvel at such imprudence.

Was it possible that His Majesty could be about to visit the Russian camp secretly, as so many of our brave fellows had done?

I dared for the moment to believe it, until the shape of a house emerged suddenly from the shadows and I saw that we had come to a considerable habitation upon the very brink of the woods. To my astonishment this was guarded by sentinels, and no sooner were we out of the shadows than one of them challenged us angrily.

"Salut de l'Empire," said His Majesty, advancing with a smile, and, the man having brought his musket to the salute, we passed the gate and entered the house.

IV

Naturally we were expected. It was evident that His Majesty would never have gone upon such a journey if he had not known very well that he would find a welcome at the end of it. The army hears many stories and must listen at all times with prudent ears. We had mentioned the name of more than one belle fille since we had left Paris, and we knew that we should mention many another before we returned there. So you will imagine my surprise when it was not a young woman but a very old one who greeted us upon the threshold of this remote house.

I saw she was old, but it would have puzzled a man to have guessed her age. Shrivelled and wan, with a skin of parchment and hair of flax, her eyes nevertheless glittered like those of a hawk, and her hands were ablaze with diamonds of wonderful lustre. Her dress was rich, and such as usually worn by noblewomen in Russia. She wore a silk robe trimmed with ermine, and the most wonderful cape of the same costly fur about her hunched shoulders. To His Majesty she was deferential beyond compare. She welcomed him with a curtsey full of the old-time stateliness, and to me she extended her hand to be kissed. Then she bade us enter the salle à manger of the house, and I perceived at once that supper was prepared there.

I have told you that it was an extensive dwelling, though built of wood, and certainly this apartment was fine enough for anything. The walls were everywhere hung with old French tapestry; the furniture must have come from our own Paris. There was china of Sèvres upon the table, and that extravagant porcelain in which the East and the West commingle and delight. Two liveried servants stood at the table's head and bowed low as the Emperor entered. He, however, appeared but ill at ease, and I plainly perceived that he was seeking someone whose presence he had expected.

This whetted my curiosity. The old lady herself, setting His Majesty at the head of her table, now sat down upon his right hand, and motioned me to a seat beside her. Then she made a signal to the lackeys, and instantly they began to serve us with all manner of luxuries unlooked for in such a place, and certainly not discovered since we had left Moscow.

The man who has lived upon horseflesh for many days is a good judge of any kind of cooking, and I could not but think, as I sat at the table, of that unhappy mendicant who had said to Louis XV., "Sire, how hungry I am!" and had been answered with the quip, "Lucky devil."

To me this Was a Gargantuan feast such as had never been surpassed in all my years.

We had the fine sturgeon in which the Russians delight, their own caviare, excellent mutton, and chickens which were matchless, and all washed down with the wines of Burgundy, and upon that with draughts of our own magnificent brandy. When we had finished we were even offered a little preserved fruit and some of the tobacco which the Russians smoke rolled in slips of paper. His Majesty condescended to try one of these, but made little of it, and presently it became apparent to me that he was anxious, and that his anxiety no longer brooked the control of silence.

"Madame," he asked without warning, "where is your daughter Kyra?"

The question had been expected, and madame lifted her wise eyes when she heard it.

"Ah!" she exclaimed in French, "so you are anxious to speak to Kyra again."

"Why not?" says His Majesty. "She told me many things I wished to hear; is that not a reason?"

"And your Majesty found them true?"

For an instant the Emperor seemed to be dreaming. Then, tapping the table lightly with his fingers, he said:

"In the main they were true. She told me that Moscow would be burned."

Madame Zchekofsky—for such I discovered the lady's name to be—feigned great pity.

"Ah, what a dreadful thing—and so many of your poor soldiers who suffered! Little did I think when I heard the child speak that such wisdom was in her keeping, but so it is, as your Majesty admits."

"Most willingly. I expected to hear more of it to-night. Is your daughter ill, or is she merely absent?"

Madame Zchekofsky shook her head.

"She is ill, sire; it is the bitter cold of this terrible winter. Otherwise she would have been by your Majesty's side to-night."

"Ah!" cried the Emperor, with a gesture Of disappointment; "then I must not see her?"

"I fear not. These visions are not to be encouraged, as I am sure Dr. Constant will tell you. Those who command them suffer much afterwards. Is it not so, doctor?"

I hardly knew how to answer her. It had come to me suddenly that this old woman was playing with both of us, and there flashed upon me the disquieting thought that His Majesty's life might even be in danger. Could the Russians have laid hands upon him at such a moment and carried him a prisoner to Petersburg, then indeed were the fortunes of my country imperilled, and a blow struck at the Empire from which it might never recover. Yet what was I to do? The Emperor was as good a judge as I of the situation, and it would have been the mere effrontery of a subordinate which would have reminded him of its dangers.

"Madame," said I, "these things do not concern men of common sense. When I go to bed at night the only vision that I look for is that of the morning sun. If your daughter be a prophetess, I am sorry for you both, for it has never seemed to me a profitable occupation. Discourage her if you can—that is my advice."

She shook her head.

"And yet you heard His Majesty say that she foretold the burning of Moscow?"

"A guess at hazard," said I. "What is more, madame, she may have known that your Emperor was about to burn it. These things are not done by one or two people, but by many thousands. It is quite probable that she should have heard of the intentions."

His Majesty smiled at this, yet the old hawk regarded me with some malice. What her object was—whether to push the fortunes of her house with the Emperor, or merely to advance his interest in her daughter—I could not then imagine; but I know now that she had intended to follow us to Paris and there to establish herself if she could.

My pessimism evidently angered her; she had looked for me to support His Majesty in this amiable humour.

"Well," said she, rising abruptly, "it is easy to put the matter to the proof. Kyra should not leave her room, but His Majesty may go there if he will. He shall then tell me if it were a guess or no. Do you desire that, sire?"

I could see that the Emperor was greatly pleased; he rose at once and waited for her to show him the way. In that brief interval I stepped to his side and begged to be permitted to follow him.

"A whim, if you like, sire. Perhaps I am also a prophet," said I, and we exchanged a glance I shall never forget.

The Emperor knew that he was in peril, then. Did he also know the nature of it? If so, he were wiser than I, who followed him merely upon an impulse for which I could not account.

V

We mounted a wide flight of stairs and stood for an instant before a great carved door at the head of them. The house was very silent, and the lackeys had disappeared. I could hear the distant sounds in the village and from the high road the rumble of cannon and the blare of bugles. But these were fitful and easily to be explained. What I did not like was the uncanny silence in the dwelling itself. We entered a great ante-room on the first floor, and from that passed to a little bedroom such as a young girl might have occupied. It was empty, but madame knocked at the door which led from it, and, receiving no immediate answer, we all sat down and waited in the darkness.

"The child sleeps," said the Emperor.

The old woman muttered something I could not distinguish.

"Of what nature is her illness?" His Majesty asked next.

"It has been a fever," says madame; "but she is better of that, and now suffers only from weakness."

"In which case we must wait until she awakes. Do you not suggest a better place than this, madame?"

Madame rose at this rebuke.

"I will go in myself," she said; but before she could take a step the door of the adjoining room was opened and Mademoiselle Kyra herself appeared.

Her dress was a long white robe tied with a girdle. Her hair was like her mother's, but more silken in texture, and fell, as the hair of many Russian women does, almost to her feet. I thought her amazingly beautiful—by far the prettiest woman I had yet seen in this damnable country, and, in truth, I envied His Majesty such good fortune. He, however, seemed in no way impressed by the child's looks, but only by her attitude, which was that of one who walked in her sleep and might not be awakened without danger. Stepping back, with his finger on his lips, the Emperor let the girl go slowly from the room to the great antechamber beyond, we following upon tiptoe, as though we spied upon this unlooked-for apparition.

For a moment I thought that Mademoiselle Kyra was about to descend the stairs to the dining room we had left, but she crossed the landing at the stairs head, and, opening a door upon the far side, entered another bedroom, and from that a spacious apartment furnished like a chapel. Here the Emperor followed her, but madame forbade me to go. I had an instantaneous vision of a picture of the Madonna and a lamp burning before it. Then I saw the girl stumble and appear about to fall, but His Majesty caught her in his arms, and madame immediately closed the door upon them.

"You can wait," she said, and, closing the door of the bedroom and drawing a heavy curtain over it, she left me standing sentinel in that black, dark room.

VI

It was an odd situation, I must confess.

The army is well acquainted with more than one such expedition in which His Majesty has figured, and I was not the first officer, by many, who had watched a house wherein he pursued an adventure of this kind.

But here the circumstances were very different.

The girl was not as other women of whom we spoke in merriment. She had come from her apartment in sleep, and was sleeping, I believe, when she entered the chapel. The impulse which drove His Majesty appeared to me to be curiosity rather than love. I have heard that he was somewhat given to omens and the occult sciences, and while pretending to be an absolute disbeliever in them, would nevertheless lend a willing ear to any charlatan who had a tale to tell. Mademoiselle Kyra had forewarned him of certain happenings upon his march to Moscow, so what could be more natural than that he should desire to hear what she had to say of his retreat?

These thoughts were uppermost in my mind when I found myself alone in the room. I could hear no sound whatever from the chapel, not even that of a woman whispering. The house itself had fallen again to a silence quite remarkable. I tried to look from the window of the bedroom, but found it so frosted that not a thing could be seen beyond. The old lady herself had disappeared and gone I knew not whither. Another, perhaps, would have spied upon the Emperor, and even found a pretext for following him into the chapel. This kind of curiosity has never afflicted me, and all that I remembered was the continued peril of our situation.

How if the Cossacks made a sudden dash upon Liadoui and overpowered the sentinels at the gate!

Nothing could be easier than such an assault. We had but two regiments of the grenadiers in the village, and they were worn to death with marching. Indeed, I believed they were already sleeping in any bivouac they could find. The guns were mostly a day's march ahead of us, and we had little artillery in our train. Nothing, I said, could be looked for as surely as a sudden descent of the Cossacks upon any house in which they might imagine the Emperor to be sleeping. So you will understand my sense of responsibility and the keen ear I leant to any sounds from without.

The silence of the night seemed, indeed, almost unnatural. I began to be affrighted by it. What was odd was the length of time His Majesty was closeted in the dark chapel. It is true that I heard the sound of voices when a little while had passed, and that a busy murmur of talk went on at intervals for a full hour. Then for a spell again there was silence, and it was during that interval that I first heard the alarm from without.

There were horsemen approaching the village. My trained ear told me the truth in an instant, and bending it to the glass, I made sure that I was not mistaken. Horsemen, I said, were riding across the frozen snow, either towards Liadoui or to Madame Zchekofsky's dwelling. No sooner was the opinion formed than the cry of a dying man confirmed it. Someone had sabred or bayoneted the sentry at the gate. There is no mistaking that awful cry which a man utters when he realises that he has lived his life and that the steel within him has reached his heart. I knew it too well, and, springing back at the sound, I ran to the chapel doors and beat heavily upon them.

"Your Majesty," I cried, "for God's sake!"

The door was locked, but someone opened it instantly, and there stood Mademoiselle Kyra and the Emperor by her side. She was wide awake now and a look of terror had come upon her pretty face.

"I beg you to go," she said to him.

For answer he stepped out into the bedroom and asked me what was the matter.

"The Cossacks are here," I cried; "they have killed the sentinel. Your Majesty must not delay."

Napoleon Bonaparte was no coward, as all the world knows, and he heard me almost with nonchalance.

"Are you quite sure?" he asked.

I told him that there was no doubt of it.

"Listen for yourself, sire," said I; "they are entering the house."

He shrugged his shoulders and turned to Mademoiselle Kyra.

"Is there a way out by the chapel?" he asked her.

Her affrighted eyes answered him.

"You will have to return by the great staircase," said she; and at that he smiled, for we could hear already the tramp of many feet upon it.

"That is a pity," says he now. "Major Constant must see what they want."

Then, speaking very earnestly to me, he exclaimed: "I count upon your devotion, major; do what you can." And instantly he re-entered the chapel, and I drew the curtain across its doors.

There was now, I suppose, an interval of ten good seconds in which I had an opportunity to think. Two alternatives faced me—I might either draw my sword and meet the men as they entered, or feign fraternity and so try to disarm their suspicions. The latter course occurred to me as the wiser, and without a moment's hesitation I sprang upon the bed and drew the heavy counterpane over my shoulders. The thing was hardly done when the door burst open and some ten men entered the room. They were Cossacks of the Guard, and every man had his sword drawn.

VII

I know little of the Russian tongue, but the few words that I have were sufficient to tell me that the first cry uttered by the leader of the men was for light. This was echoed down the stairs, and presently there came a sergeant with a lantern and another behind him with a wax candle in his hand.

I had not moved during the interval, and I lay still yet a little while. The fellows began to peer about immediately, and of course they soon discovered me upon the bed. Then, truly, I thought that I had not a minute to live. There were the barbarians, savage as it seemed in the lust of blood. There was I as helpless as a bullock at the slaughter. They had but to cut and thrust, and the story of Surgeon-Major Constant would have been written for all time. You may imagine how my heart beat while I waited to feel the prick of the steel and wondered how death in such a shape would come.

To a man so placed delay is but an agony anew. I could have prayed that they would strike swiftly, and when they did not strike I laughed aloud like a woman grown hysterical.

God in heaven, how I laughed! Sitting up in the bed and watching that ring of steel, no hyena in the wilderness uttered such sounds as I. The best joke that was ever told could never have moved me as that perilous situation. Not for my life, not even for the life of His Majesty, was I acting thus; nay, if a man had offered me ten thousand golden pieces to have recovered my serenity, the money would have been lost for ever.

Well, the effect upon the Cossacks was amazing. I have never had a doubt that the first of the band had already raised his sabre to thrust me through when this weird fit overtook me. The wonder of it held his hand and left him powerless. He stood there looking at me as though he had come suddenly upon a madman. Possibly I laughed, as men will at times, with an air which is infectious, compelling others to take up the catch, and certainly depriving them of their anger. Be that as it may, there were fellows laughing in that bedroom before I had done, and anon the whole company roared aloud with me. Such a thing was like a sudden vision of life to a man whom death had held by both hands. In a twinkling I had got my courage back, and what was but an ailment had become a stratagem. If laughter could save the Emperor, then was I the man. Soon I began to sing the "Ram, ram, ram, ram, plan, tire-lire ram plan," and shouted it with all my lungs and danced a step before them. They in their turn clapped me on the back with their sabres and cried for drink.

"You will find it in the salle à manger," said I, speaking to one of them in French, and then, opening my mouth and making the sign of a man drinking, I caught the fellow by the arm and dragged him down the stairs. The others followed like sheep that would go into a fold. We were all drinking about the table in less than no time, and an hour had not run before the whole troop of them were as drunk as sailors at Toulon.

I say they were drunk, but a man must have been in Russia to know how very drunk they were.

This was no mere rollicking, no shouting of songs or bawling of catches, but right-down deep drinking, and upon that a stupor which bore a very good likeness to death. I watched them tumbling to the floor one by one, and, spurning their bodies aside with my foot, I remembered His Majesty and went back to him. He was still standing at the stairs head where I had left him, and Mademoiselle Kyra was still by his side.

"Well," says he; and I told him at a breath.

"There's an end of this until daybreak," said I. "Your Majesty can go now."

He did not speak, leaving it to the girl, who went slowly to the window and, opening it a little way, looked out across the field of snow. Then she shut the casement quickly and came back to us.

"They are watching the house," she said quietly. "It is as I thought. They know your Majesty is here, and are waiting for you."

"Then let them find me instead," said I immediately, and, stepping up to the Emperor, I begged the loan of his cloak and cocked hat. "You will find mine a little large, but they will serve, sire," said I. "If I draw off the troop, well and good. If not, your Majesty may yet find a way."

He looked at me in his own way, as one whom danger amused rather than dismayed.

"I will send a regiment of hussars to bring you back," he exclaimed, pinching my ear as he was wont to do when pleased. Then he handed me his cloak and cocked hat and I donned them as though the joke were entirely to my liking. For all that, I knew very well what I was doing, and I would not have valued my life at a lira's purchase when I left him at the stairs head and went down.

Mademoiselle stood by his side then, and they were deep in talk. I might have said that I was forgotten already, and that may have been true enough. Men have died for Napoleon Bonaparte, knowing well that their very names would be unremembered when the sun rose again. Others will imitate them, for such is the spirit his gifts of kingship have inspired.

*****

It was the dead of night when I went out, and not a sign of the old hag. I believed then that she had betrayed us, and had I met her that would have been the last hour she had lived. But, as I say, she had clean vanished, and the only lackey visible was dead asleep by the stove in the hall. Very softly now I pushed open the outer doors and looked about me. The spectacle was wonderfully beautiful, but as menacing as it was glorious. A great full moon shone down upon a scene that should have stood in a magic land. Earth and sky alike were aglow with the entrancing lights of winter made magnificent. The cold was intense beyond belief: the frost made a diamond of every pebble the foot crushed. And upon it all was the stillness of God's death.... the silence of a land which an Eastern winter had shrouded.

Thus for the beauty of the scene. The menace was no less remarkable. There, frosted already, were the corpses of the sentinels the Russians had murdered. To reach the open I must step over the prone figures of brother Frenchmen and look into their staring eyes. The shudder was still upon me when I heard a cry of savage triumph, and knew that the Cossacks were upon me. The troop which Mademoiselle Kyra had seen from the window rode out of the shadows even as I crossed the threshold. They fell upon me as wolves upon a carcass, and no fowl was trussed as surely while a man could have counted twenty.

VIII

Imagine the exultation of these men, who believed that they had captured the greatest of Frenchmen, living or dead, and were carrying him to their general.

The first transports passed, their sense of prudence returned to them, and with it a deference which should have won laughter from a log! The Emperor of the French a prisoner in their hands! Heaven above me, how they bowed and capered! What antics they cut! Never had a man such slaves at his feet. I was set upon a horse immediately, and had a guard at the head and tail of him. The officer saluted until his arm must have been weary. He had caught the Emperor—what a night!

Our way lay over the snows to the Cossack camp upon the far side. Behind me there shone the lights of the house I had quitted, bright stars beyond a frozen sea. I knew that the next hour would find me in the Russian general's tent, and that my shrift must be short. What mattered the regiment of hussars the Emperor was to send? My body would be frozen on the snows before they could ride out.

Upon this there fell an apathy difficult to understand.

We had suffered so much during those terrible days—hunger and thirst, and blood and wounds—that any man might have opened his arms to death as to a friend. And here was the end of it for me. What mattered it? In a vision, I beheld the lights of my own France, the home which sheltered all dear to me, the land towards which my eyes had been lifted these many weeks. Never again might I look upon that smiling country. Night and the unknown were my portion. There would be few to remember my name to-morrow.

From such thoughts a reality most absurd awoke me.

I have set down this narrative of events as I lived and knew them, and have kept nothing from you, that you may judge of things, not as we look for them, but as an unromantic destiny determines that they shall be.

I say that I awoke with a start, believing myself to be upon a horse and at the very threshold of the Russian camp. Depict my astonishment when, opening my eyes, I beheld again madame's salle à manger, the tables spread with meat and drink, the forms of the intoxicated Russians on the floor all about me, and above them the red coats of our own Hussars of the Guard! For an instant I believed that the witch in ermine had cast a spell upon me, and that this was but a vision of her enchantment. Then the merry laughter of my own comrades disillusioned me and I staggered, dizzy and dumbfounded, to my feet.

"Name of a dog," I cried to them, "and what does this mean?"

They answered me with a merriment which became a shout.

"It means that the liquor was very good and that you got very drunk," says their captain, clapping me on the shoulder ... and at him I stared all bewildered.

"Drunk!" I cried. "You say that I was drunk!"

"Undoubtedly.... His Majesty told us to take care of you...."

"Then he is not here?" I exclaimed in wonder.

"He is already six leagues on the road to Wilna," was the answer. A child might have put me over at that. I clapped my hands to my fevered brow and began to believe them. Drunk I had been ... but by drink had I saved the Emperor's life.

And I had done him an injustice in my dream. He has not forgotten, as I knew full well.

IX

You will see how it all happened, and will need no further words from me.

Taking the Cossacks down to madame's salle à manger to keep them from the Emperor, I also had been overpowered by their cursed liquor, and had fallen under the table with the rest of them. There I dreamed of Russian camps, and France, and death, and all the nonsense of it, and there I awoke to find our own Red Hussars in possession of the dwelling. How they laughed at me! Yet what music their laughter proved to be!

As to old Madame Zchekofsky, I veritably believe that she played a double part that night with all a woman's cunning. Desiring the Emperor's friendship, she encouraged his belief in her daughter's power of prophecy, at the same time trying to keep in with the Russians by informing them of our presence in the house at a moment when she believed we would already have left it. Thus her anxiety and that disquiet I had observed with such misgiving.

I saw her in Paris in the memorable year 1815, and her daughter was with her. Naturally my nephew Léon desired to know so mysterious a personage, and I fancy she found his gifts of prophecy not less considerable than her own. This, however, was long after the terrible weeks when so many thousands of brave Frenchmen left their bones upon the snows of Russia because the Emperor had willed it.