Poor Masha gaped and muttered for an hour; then she snored at intervals in concert with her husband; then she fell asleep in earnest and this time very soundly.
"Poor soul!" thought Louise; "let her sleep! We shall have one pitchfork the less to contend with!"
Long before four o'clock she was afoot and on the way to Biéloy, having left the worthy moujik and his wife snoring in peaceful harmony.
She reached Biéloy, a large village or selo, which means the principal of a group of villages, containing the church and perhaps a shop or two. The place was occupied by French soldiers. A picket was placed upon the road half a mile from Biéloy and the soldiers sat and talked and laughed over their fire. They challenged Louise, who showed herself in the firelight and explained her errand.
"That is well," laughed a man. "I thought you must have fallen in love with some Russian wench in Moscow and were returning to her embraces. This we should have been obliged to prevent. Love is good when time and opportunity serve. Think of the women of Paris, mon brave, they wait for you and for me!" Louise laughed also.
"You will allow me to carry my news to the Marshal?" she said.
"Sapristi! While the Marshal sleeps? My friend, cannot this danger wait until we are all refreshed and fit to contend with it?"
"It will wait until marching time," said Louise; "especially if you will give me food meanwhile."
"There is food to-day, and you shall share it; also there is a drink called kvass, which I think the devil invented for the confusion of human stomachs; you shall taste it and suffer pain, as I have done; what matter! we are brought into the world to suffer and to enjoy. To-morrow we may starve; but one day we shall reach Paris!"
At daybreak the village was astir. Marshal Ney himself rode out in the midst of his guards and Louise was brought before him, for she had refused to tell her tale except to his ears.