There were we two riding up and down the glade with three burly Cossacks at our heels, and devil of a wall against which we might set our backs.
To make matters worse, my own horse stumbled heavily over the solid roots of a magnificent beech tree, and anon I found myself on the ground, with a couple of Russians atop of me. They would have done for me but for an ally as unexpected as his appearance was grotesque. This man had been lying, seemingly dead, at the foot of the tree by which I fell. He was one of our chasseurs à pied, and he seemed swathed from head to foot in fur. What had wakened him, whether a kick from a horse or the delirium of sickness, I cannot tell you, but, staggering to his feet, he ran at the Russians with his bayonet, and had pinned one to the snow almost before I was aware of his presence. The other waited for no such attention, but, setting his horse at a gallop, rode madly from the wood.
We had now accounted for five of the Russians—no mean achievement for men in such a condition. The poor fellow who had assisted us we discovered to be in a woeful state—his feet frost-bitten and two of the fingers of his left hand missing. He hardly seemed to know what he had done for us, but, sinking at the foot of the tree, he raved incoherently of his home at Châlons, and of his wife and children awaiting him there. We gave him some of the brandy, and tried to lift him upon my nephew's horse, but it was of no good, and presently he appeared to regain his senses and to be aware both of his situation and of our own.
"You cannot help me, my friends," said he. "The road is yonder; take it while you may. I am done for."
And upon this he threw back his head and seemed to die instantly.
This was a very sad thing to see, and sent us from the place in a worse spirit than I had hoped. My own wound had now begun to trouble me, and I discovered that the lance had penetrated the flesh below the shoulder, and left a gaping wound which in another climate might have proved troublesome. As it was, we bound it up stoutly with a piece torn from my tattered shirt, and, the darkness already gathering, and the snow beginning to fall, we prepared to leave the wood in the direction which the poor chasseur had indicated to us.
III
I say that we prepared to leave the wood, but before we did so the idea came to me to take with us the capes and the busbies of the Cossacks we had slain, in the hope that they would be of service to us in so dangerous a place. Bidding my nephew imitate me, I stripped the fellow I had killed, and invited Léon to do the same to the other.
"The woods are full of these fellows," said I, "and who knows what this device may do for us? A la guerre comme à la guerre. Let us try our luck under the new colours, for it has been bad enough under the old."
He laughed in reply, for my new appearance amused him.