I jumped up, tired as I was, cleared at one bound the fire and the poor devil lying beside it, and set off running, but stumbling over a cuirass in the way, I fell all my length on the ground. I was fortunate enough not to hurt myself; I might well have done so with all the firearms lying about. I got up and walked backwards, my eyes fixed on the waggon, as if I expected an explosion every instant. At last I recovered from my terror, and came back to the place I had left so foolishly, for I was quite as safe there as twenty yards off.

I took off the pieces of burning wood and carefully carried them to the place where I had fallen; then I took the cuirass to gather snow in and put out the fire. But I had hardly begun this work, when I heard a flourish of trumpets, and after listening attentively, I recognised it for the Russian cavalry, announcing that they were not far off. I saw the Cossack raise his head at the sound. I tried to read his thoughts by his expression, for the fire was now bright enough for me to see his features, which were truly hideous. He squinted, and his eyes were deeply set beneath a low, prominent forehead; his hair and beard were red and thick like a mane, giving him a wild and savage appearance. His shoulders were of Herculean proportions. He was probably suffering terribly from his wound, for he writhed as he lay, and from time to time ground his teeth. I was listening to the sound of the trumpets in a dazed sort of way, when all at once I heard another noise just behind me. I turned round, and, to my horror, saw the waggon opening like a tomb, and coming out of it an enormous individual, white as snow from head to foot, like the commander's ghost in the 'Festin de Pierre,' holding up the top of the waggon with one hand, and having a drawn sword in the other. I looked silently at this spectre, walking a few steps backward, and drawing my sword while waiting for it to speak first. It was trying, without success, to unfasten the great white cloak it wore with the hand which held the sword, as the other was engaged in holding up the top of the waggon.

At last, breaking the silence, I asked in rather a trembling voice:

'Are you a Frenchman?'

'Yes, of course I am French! What a d——d silly question! There you stand like a church candle! You see what a fix I am in, and you don't attempt to help me out of this coffin. I seem to have frightened you, my good fellow.'

'Yes, you did frighten me; but I thought you might be another of these beauties'—pointing to the man at the fire.

I helped him out as I spoke, and he threw off his cloak. Imagine my surprise and delight when I recognised one of my old friends of the Grenadiers of the Old Guard, a comrade called Picart—Picart by name and Picard by nation—whom I had not seen since the Emperor's review at the Kremlin! He and I had made our first campaign together; we had been at the battles of Jena, Pultusk, Eylau, Tilsit, and later, in 1809, at Mora, on the Spanish frontier, and other campaigns since then, although not in the same regiment. Picart scarcely knew me again, I had altered so much and looked so miserable. We gazed at each other in amazement—I to see him looking so clean and well, and he to find me so thin, and looking, as he said, like Robinson Crusoe. At last he said:

'Tell me, sergeant, my old friend, by what luck or misfortune do I find you here, alone and at night, with that villainous Cossack. Just look at him! See his eyes! He has been here since five o'clock yesterday, and then he disappeared. I can't think why he has come back. And you? What brought you here in the middle of the night?'

'Before I tell you, have you a bit of something to eat about you?'