I say they were drunk, but a man must have been in Russia to know how very drunk they were.
This was no mere rollicking, no shouting of songs or bawling of catches, but right-down deep drinking, and upon that a stupor which bore a very good likeness to death. I watched them tumbling to the floor one by one, and, spurning their bodies aside with my foot, I remembered His Majesty and went back to him. He was still standing at the stairs head where I had left him, and Mademoiselle Kyra was still by his side.
"Well," says he; and I told him at a breath.
"There's an end of this until daybreak," said I. "Your Majesty can go now."
He did not speak, leaving it to the girl, who went slowly to the window and, opening it a little way, looked out across the field of snow. Then she shut the casement quickly and came back to us.
"They are watching the house," she said quietly. "It is as I thought. They know your Majesty is here, and are waiting for you."
"Then let them find me instead," said I immediately, and, stepping up to the Emperor, I begged the loan of his cloak and cocked hat. "You will find mine a little large, but they will serve, sire," said I. "If I draw off the troop, well and good. If not, your Majesty may yet find a way."
He looked at me in his own way, as one whom danger amused rather than dismayed.
"I will send a regiment of hussars to bring you back," he exclaimed, pinching my ear as he was wont to do when pleased. Then he handed me his cloak and cocked hat and I donned them as though the joke were entirely to my liking. For all that, I knew very well what I was doing, and I would not have valued my life at a lira's purchase when I left him at the stairs head and went down.
Mademoiselle stood by his side then, and they were deep in talk. I might have said that I was forgotten already, and that may have been true enough. Men have died for Napoleon Bonaparte, knowing well that their very names would be unremembered when the sun rose again. Others will imitate them, for such is the spirit his gifts of kingship have inspired.