I looked, and saw it too. An idea came to me, and I said:
'Perhaps the fire belongs to the bivouac of the cavalry we saw this morning.'
'I think very likely it does,' he said; 'we must behave as if we were sure of it. We made a great mistake this morning in not loading our muskets while we were near the fire. Now our hands are numbed, and the barrels full of snow, we can't do it.'
The snow fell very lightly now, and the sky was clearer. All at once I caught sight of a horse gnawing the bark of a birch on the edge of the lake. I pointed it out to Picart, and as the horse was not harnessed, he thought it might be a wounded one, abandoned by the Russian cavalry.
While we were talking, the horse suddenly threw up his head and began to neigh, then quietly came straight up to us and snuffed at Picart as if he knew him. We dared neither move nor speak. The confounded horse stopped there, his head against Picart's fur cap, who dared hardly breathe, fearing that his master might come to look for him. Seeing, however, that he had a wound in the chest, we concluded that he was abandoned, and no doubt the bivouac also. We moved forward, and reached a cleared semicircle covered with shelters and fires, and seven horses killed and partly eaten. We guessed that more than 200 men must have passed the night here.
'It was the Russians,' said Picart, warming his hands in the ashes. 'I remember that yellow horse; he was my mark in the attack. I think I got his master a commission for the next world.'
After a thorough look round we revived the fire in front of the shelter, which the leader of the party had apparently occupied.
The snow had stopped, and a dead calm had succeeded the wind. We now began to make soup, but thought it wiser to keep back our own store of meat, as there was plenty to be had here. Picart cut some fresh meat with my little axe, enough for soup, and also some to take away with us. We tried to break through the ice for water, but had not enough strength or patience for the job. Now we were quite warm, and the prospect of having some good soup filled me with joy. When one is in real trouble, how little it takes to make one happy! Our saucepan was of no use in its dilapidated condition, but Picart, who was full of resource, and whom nothing put out, set to work to put it right. He cut down a pine-tree to about a foot and a half from the ground, and using the stump as an anvil, and another thick piece as a hammer (wrapped in rag to dull the sound), he began his tinker's work, singing and keeping time with his blows. These were the words he sang, just as he used to sing them during the night-marches to his company:
'C'est ma mie l'aveugle,
C'est ma mie l'aveugle,
C'est ma fantaisie;
J'en suis amoureux.'