He did not agree with me at all. A ready instinct told him what had happened.
"The carriage stuck in the sand yonder," said he. "The servants went for horses to a neighbouring farm. This girl here may have been with them as a servant or she may not. The fellow who murdered them was the one we found with her in the wood. It is as simple as an open book, my dear uncle."
"Then," said I, "we will write the end of the story. Of course we must wait until the others return."
"What?" cried he; "with the night coming down and the Cossacks in the woods! That would be madness indeed, my uncle."
And then he added with a laugh, "The old gentleman is in heaven and is in no need of diamonds. We shall know very well what to do with them when we get in Paris. Let us make haste before we are discovered."
He did not wait for me to reply, but holding the girl close to him on the saddle he trotted on through the wood, and I followed him reluctantly.
We were as rich as Croesus, yet how we were going to get out of the forest, where we should find the army, or what chance we had of carrying our treasure to Paris, I knew no more than the dead.
IV
The way now lay through a wide avenue—one of the most beautiful I had seen in Russia. The grass lay smooth and green, and bore no trace of the relentless summer. We might have been in the precincts of some princely chateau, and we were not at all surprised presently when we came upon a considerable building which had all the air of one of those picturesque monasteries in which Russia abounds. Had we any doubt of this, a great gilt dome with a Greek cross high above it would have settled it; for never have I seen a more beautiful object than this golden ball glistening amid the woods as though its heart were of fire, while a celestial radiance shone all about it. To Léon, however, it merely stood for a place whereat we might get food and drink.
"These monks are very decent fellows," he said; "they know how to entertain strangers. The regiment will bivouac not far from here, and we may just as well stay the night in yonder building as sleep in a mouldy barn. Cheer up, uncle, and think of the good wine you are about to drink. It's the luckiest thing that could have happened to us."