Then Pierson, who was on the front seat, carrying a silver urn that he had brought from Moscow, and which he continually made use of for brewing tea, began to shout 'Halt!' in his turn.
The rascal Jews jumped down from the bundle of hay on which they were seated, and, still going on, but not so rapidly, they took the horses by the bridle, turned the sledge, and upset us from the top to the bottom of the bank into the ditch. Happily for me, I was sitting at the back, with my legs hanging over the side of the sledge, so I had been able to see their intention, and letting myself slip down, I avoided the fall; but my comrades rolled to the bottom, more than twenty-five feet, and came down, bruised all over, on the ice. As their feet and hands were frozen, they shouted loudly. These cries changed into cries of rage against the Jews, who, keeping their hold upon the horses' bridles, had prevented the sleigh, although overturned, from rolling to the bottom, and had by now already dragged it to the edge of the bank. They were preparing to escape with our baggage; but I drew my sword, and gave one of the Jews a cut on his head. He had to thank his fur cap that his head wasn't split in two. I struck him a second blow, which he parried with his left hand covered with sheepskin. They would have escaped us, but Pierson came up to help me, while the others, still at the bottom of the embankment—which they had not the strength to climb—were swearing and shouting to us to kill the Jews. The one whom I had struck escaped by crossing the canal; the other, who was holding the horses, asked for mercy, saying it was his comrade's fault. Pierson, however, gave him a few blows with the flat of his sword, while he entreated pardon, calling us 'General' and 'Colonel.'
Pierson, taking the horse's bridle, ordered the Jew to go down and help our comrades to climb out. He hastened to obey, and was rewarded by blows of the fist very forcibly applied. When they were all up again, Leboude announced that we had acquired a right to the sledge and horses, as these two rascals had attempted to kill us in order to make off with our possessions.
We ordered the Jew to drive us at a gallop, and by the shortest way, to where we might rejoin the army, but we had to go back the whole way we had come.
When we got near the town, the Jew wanted to go there under pretext of fetching something from his house; no doubt it was to give us up to the Cossacks, who were now filling the town. We gave him a taste of sword-point in his back, and threatened to kill him if he took another step in the direction of the town. Accordingly, he hastened to turn to the right, the road the army had taken; we caught sight of the last stragglers a long distance ahead. We got up with them a quarter of an hour later, and then, rapidly descending a hill, left them behind.
I was at the back of the sledge; the pole of one of the sledges, descending, caught me on the right side, and threw me six feet out on the snow. I lay unconscious. A quarter-master belonging to the Mamelukes, who knew me, hurried to lift me up and seat me upon the snow.[69] My comrades came running up, too; they imagined the pole had wounded me, but my clothes, fortunately, had deadened the blow. Also, as luck would have it, the edge of the pole was covered with sheepskin.
I was lifted up and placed again upon the sledge, and, except for some sickness, I was no worse for the accident.
It might have been about nine o'clock when we arrived at a large village; a great many men were already there. We turned into a house to warm ourselves; we left our sledge at the door, after having taken the precaution to unload our baggage and make the Jew come in with us, for fear that he might make off with our conveyance.