It is difficult to imagine what the tenderly-nurtured Catharine Somoff had to undergo in this perilous journey. The hills and forests around presented only some white, indistinct masses, scarcely visible through the thick fog. At a short distance before them lay the fatal river the Beresina, the scene of untold horrors, which, now half-frozen, forced its way through the ice that impeded its progress. The two bridges were so completely choked up by the crowds of people, horsemen, foot-soldiers, and fugitives, that they broke down. Then began a frightful scene, for the bodies of dead and dying men and horses so encumbered the way, that many poor fellows, struggling with the agonies of death, caught hold of those who mounted over them; but these kicked them with violence to disengage themselves, treading them under foot. Thousands of victims fell into the waves and were drowned.

The reader will not be surprised to hear that at this awful time the little Catharine was separated from her protectress, who was probably drowned or killed, or else imagined the child to be engulfed in the waters of the fatal river. At all events, the Russian child and the sutler's wife never met again in this world.

'There is a power
Unseen, that rules th' illimitable world—
That guides its motions, from the brightest star
To the least dust of this sin-tainted mould;
While man, who madly deems himself the lord
Of all, is nought but weakness and dependence.
This sacred truth, by sure experience taught,
Thou must have learnt, when, wandering all alone,
Each bird, each insect, flitting through the sky,
Was more sufficient for itself than thou.'

CHAPTER II.

In spite of all obstacles, Catharine managed to cross over one of the bridges to the opposite side of the Beresina, and then the poor child came on with a detachment of the French army as far as Poland. Many of her companions perished of exposure and want; others were lost on the way; some lay down from sheer exhaustion, or to try to sleep, and, ignorant of the hour of march, on awaking found themselves in the power of the enemy.

The sick and the wounded anxiously looked around for some humane friend to help them, but their cries were lost in the air. No one had leisure to attend to his dearest friend—self-preservation, the first law of nature, absorbed every thought.