“A retreat to Eger, my friend. I hope,” he added gravely, “we shall all meet again there.”
He saluted and passed on.
“Oh!” exclaimed the Marquis softly—“a retreat in mid-December.”
He closed the volume of Corneille and glanced at the eager face of his companion.
They could hear the wind that swirled the snow without.
CHAPTER V
THE RETREAT FROM PRAGUE
The French quitted Prague on the evening of the 16th of December, leaving only a small garrison in the Hradcany; by the 18th the vanguard had reached Pürgitz at the crossing of the rivers, and then the snow, that had paused for two days, commenced towards evening and the cold began to increase almost beyond human endurance.
At first their retreat had been harried by Austrian guns and charges of the Hungarian Pandours, but the enemy did not follow them far. The cannon was no longer in their ears; for twenty-four hours they marched through the silence of a barren, deserted country.
The road was now so impassable, the darkness so impenetrable, the storm so severe, the troops so exhausted that M. de Belleisle ordered a halt, though all they had for camping-ground was a ragged ravine, a strip of valley by the river, and, for the Generals, a few broken houses in the devastated village of Pürgitz.
The officers of the régiment du roi received orders to halt as they were painfully making their way through the steep mountain paths; they shrugged and laughed and proceeded without comment to make their camp.