THE TREASURE IN THE WOODS
I
It was on the 18th day of October in the year 1812 that we first heard
of His Majesty's intention to abandon Moscow.
This came to us as a very great surprise.
It is true that we had had a terrible time in the city, which was now
become a ruin, the convicts having burned down a great part of it; but
we had learned to make the best of affairs and what with our plunder
and our pleasures the time went merrily enough. I myself was perhaps
the hardest-worked man in the regiment. So many people were burned by
the fires in Moscow, so many were injured in the street brawls, that
the hospitals were quite full, and I rarely knew a moment of leisure.
My nephew, Captain Leon, was situated very differently. There was
hardly a day that he did not tell me of some new adventure with a
woman, and when I would reproach him he reminded me that I had been
young myself and should know the habits of a soldier better.
This was in Moscow after Valerie St. Antoine had done us so great a
service upon a memorable night. Though Leon watched for her and
offered five hundred francs to any man who would tell him of her
whereabouts, he never saw her again while we were in the city, and when
we did meet her this great army of ours was but a skeleton.
How little we foresaw the doom awaiting us when we quitted Moscow on
that sunny October day!
Everything went as merry as a marriage bell then. We knew that we were
returning to our own France and we cared not a scudo for the reason.
The Emperor, we said, had been too much for these wily Russians, and
they had surrendered everything. The truth was far otherwise--it was
the Russians who had been too clever for us, and burning down their
beautiful city, had left us to a woeful fate. Of this I am now about
to speak to you.
II
The story begins with a woman, as it began aforetime when we entered
the city.
There had been three days of beautiful weather when we of the Guard
rode in fine spirits toward our own country and gave no thought but to
the plunder we were carrying out of Russia.
I myself had many a good thing in the wagon, and I remember well a
great gold plate set with diamonds, which had been torn from Ivan's
Cross when we tried to pull it down from the cathedral in the Kremlin.
The men themselves were loaded with pretty trinkets, and carried furs
enough to clothe Paris. The costliest skins--ermine and sable and lion
and bear--were used for every conceivable purpose; and it is no wonder
that the army was followed by thousands of Jews, waiting to buy these
treasures when their owners should be weary of them.
Truly would I say that such a scene as our exit from Moscow was never
written before in the story of warfare, nor will ever be written again.
Imagine a great white wooded plain, a sandy road at the heart of it,
and upon this road an interminable procession of carts and wagons to
carry the baggage of the Grand Army.
Upon either side in the fields go cavalry and infantry, every man's
knapsack packed with loot, the commonest troopers sucking the rarest
liqueurs from costly bottles, the poorest fellows smoking pipes with
bowls of gold and tobacco that only princes should have been able to
afford. All was hope and gaiety. Paris lay twelve hundred leagues
from us, yet to Paris and our homes we were going. Who shall wonder if
the trumpets blew a merry blast and the bands set our feet dancing?
Was not the Emperor in our midst, and should we not return in a blaze
of glory?
In such content we marched for three days. There was not much
discipline observed, and the men were permitted to go pretty well as
they pleased, it being always understood that the dreaded Cossacks were
on our flank and that any foolhardiness might bring a disaster upon us.
This kept the stragglers more or less in touch with the main body of
the army; but sometimes we officers would ride away into the woods to
see what kind of hospitality we could find at a country house and to
enjoy it according to our opportunities.
It was on such an occasion that Leon and I first met Zayde, and came
near to losing our lives because of her. I must tell you of this
before going on to speak of the other days which followed, when the
north wind began to blow and all that wide landscape lay under its veil
of the cruel snow.
We had been riding through a shady wood about a mile from the high road
to Smolensk. Someone had discovered that there was a famous old
monastery in the district noted for its hospitality; and although we
expected little from any Russian monk, we were quite able to help
ourselves should the opportunity be offered. This quest carried us
farther and farther away from our comrades, until at last we appeared
to have lost the road altogether, and to be as far away from any
monastery as ever we were in all our lives. My own thought was for
going back immediately, but the younger head would hear nothing of it,
and my nephew protested loudly that I was becoming a coward.
"It is the good living in Moscow that has destroyed your nerve, uncle,"
said he. "How could we be better off than we are in this place? Soft
grass to gallop on, shady trees above, and the sun shining as though it
were mid-summer in our own France. We shall come to the monastery
presently, and they will give us wine that Adam brewed. There will be
plenty of loot to add to our saddle-bags, and perhaps there will be
sisters to comfort us. Why should we go back? The road is over there
any time we have a fancy to rejoin it."
I retorted by reminding him that the Cossacks were out, and that we
might encounter them at any time. More than once I thought that I
heard a distant sound of galloping, and I drew rein to call his
attention to it. But he would not listen to me, and still riding
southwards, as it seemed, he pulled up at length and cried in real
astonishment:
"Why, uncle, what did I tell you? Here is Cleopatra herself and her
treasures with her, as I am alive!"
I came up to him and saw what had arrested his attention. There was a
deep pit before us and in it a Cossack and a woman. The former sprang
up at our coming, and drawing a pistol from his belt, he snapped it at
Leon's head. Happily the powder did not fire, and seeing that we were
two to one, the fellow hurled the weapon at my nephew's horse and
immediately bolted for the shelter of the woods.
So we were alone with the lady and her treasure, and this, at a modest
estimate, must have been worth half a million of francs.
III
I have never seen such riches spread in a green wood before, nor am I
likely to do so if I live to a hundred years.
Consisting of jewels chiefly, there were other objects there and all
precious beyond words.
Great ropes of Eastern pearls, diamonds and emeralds; Indian images in
solid gold; the most wonderful robes of ermine and sable; jewelled
scabbards that should have come from Damascus--all these lay littered
upon the grass by the side of the impassive woman, who now looked at us
with the eyes of a child and uttered no word either of protest or of
appeal.
Certainly she was a remarkably beautiful creature.
Not more than seventeen years of age, she had hair as golden as the
sands of the sea, the white skin of the Circassian and the dark eyes of
the Persian beauty.
Her dress was an odd compromise between the East and the West.
She had baggy breeches of blue silk, high riding-boots of Russian
leather, a white and gold coat to her waist, and the kepi of the
Austrian hussar. Over all she wore a superb cloak of ermine which
would have brought a fortune could it have been sold in our own Paris.
Such was the apparition which confronted us in that lonely wood.
Needless to say that we were both greatly moved by it; Leon chiefly, I
fear, by the girl's big eyes; I by the wonders of the treasure which
lay about her. To go down into the pit and to introduce ourselves was
the work of an instant. Leon told her briefly that he was a French
officer, and he begged leave to protect her. To this she answered not
a word; but I could see that she was not displeased, and presently with
a child's laugh she dragged him down beside her.
I know Leon so well, and have seen so many women fall a victim to his
pleasing airs that this act did not surprise me as much as it should
have done. None the less, I was astonished when presently the girl
bade me sit also, and turning to one of the great bags beside her, she
produced food and wine and set it before us.
The odd thing was that she could not speak a word of any language with
which we tried her.
Of Russian I had learned a few sentences during our stay in Moscow, and
German I spoke with some fluency; but neither the one nor the other was
the slightest use; nor, need I say, had she any French. Thus we came
to signs and mouthing, in which my nephew appeared to be so proficient
that he was kissing her within twenty minutes of the encounter and
hugging her like a bear before the meal was done.
Well, we finished the meal, and then, pointing to the wood, indicated
to the girl that we must go. She had tried to tell us her name, which
we made out to be something like Zoida or Zayde, and we asked her as
well as we could to accompany us on our road and let us help her with
the treasure. The astonishing thing was that she appeared almost
indifferent to the existence of the latter, laughing like a child when
we pointed to it, and throwing the diamonds about as though they had
been pebbles. This angered me, for I saw the worth of the stuff; and
presently, speaking in a wrathful tone, I commanded her to pack the
things in the box from which they had been taken and to follow us. The
new turn appeared to alarm her not a little, and she sat crouching
there like a frightened gnome while Leon and I put the things in their
cases and began to pack them upon our horses. How they came to be in
that remote wood we knew no more than the dead; but it would clearly
have been a crime to leave them there, and indeed we had not gone many
paces upon the road before the secret of their presence was discovered.
There was at an open glade of the forest a kind of amphitheatre crossed
by a road to some southern town.
A wrecked coach stood at the junction, and all about it were the signs
of a bloody combat.
I had been riding before the others at this particular moment, and my
horse nearly stumbled over the body of an elderly man who had been shot
in the head and his brains blown out. Near by lay his coachman,
stabbed in many places and quite dead. Of the horses of the coach
there was not a trace, and it was now plain to me that the treasure had
come from it, and that this elderly man had been escaping southward
when the robbers overtook him. Naturally I turned to the girl and
began to question her angrily. She merely shook her head and shut her
eyes, as though afraid to look upon the corpse. It was to say that she
had had no hand in that bloody affair, and so much I could readily
believe.
"Good heavens!" said I to Leon, "what an infamy, and more than that,
what a mystery!"
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 Leon, 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."
I looked at the girl in his arms and wondered if he spoke truly.
We were now within a quarter of a mile of the building and could see a
portcullis and a gate from which men on horseback were riding out.
When they approached nearer it was plain that they were the servants of
the dead man whose body lay in the woods behind us; and observing this
we drew aside behind the trees to let them pass. It was evident that
they had told the story of their trouble to the good monks in yonder
building; and some of the latter, clad in brown habits with white cords
about their waists, were going down to their assistance.
I noticed that the servants were five in number and were all heavily
armed. Obviously they must have been men of little sense to have left
their master alone with a bandit in such a place and so to have
contributed to his death. The same idea occurred to Leon, who did not
fail to point out to me the nature of the peril from which he had saved
the girl, who now lay trembling in his arms.
"They would have cut her to pieces if we had not come up," said he.
"We are doing a work of mercy, mon oncle, in saving her from them. Let
us get on to the monastery and tell our own story. Of course we know
nothing of any carriage or its owners; we are just officers of the
Grand Army, and if we are not treated properly our comrades will see to
it. I count it very fortunate that things have turned out so. We
shall get an excellent dinner and a good night's rest, and to-morrow we
shall be with the regiment again. Could anything be better?"
He seemed well pleased enough, and I did not know what answer to make
to him. As for the Eastern woman, common sense said that he would send
her about her business in the morning; but not until he had made sure
that she could go in safety. These things pertain to war, and it is
not possible to disguise them. Leon was just as fifty thousand others
who marched at the Emperor's summons, neither better nor worse; and if
there be any excuse to be made for him, it is that he had a sentiment
towards the sex which was rarely lacking in nobility.
"Let no man consider himself happy until he is dead," said I, imitating
the philosopher; and with that I pressed on at his side until we came
to the gate of the monastery, and nothing remained but to tell our
story to the good monks within. This was easier than might have
seemed, for they had no word of our own tongue and we none of theirs.
It was a matter of gesture from the beginning, and in this we excelled
them without question. But first let me speak of the building we now
entered.
The monastery covered some three acres of ground. There were a few
tilled fields about it and a considerable courtyard in the Eastern
fashion. The chapel was a rude imitation of the Church of St. Ivan at
Moscow, and had a similar cross, though of smaller size, upon its
gilded dome.
The whole enclosure had been heavily walled about as a protection
against any raiding bands of brigands; and there were even ancient
cannon upon its battlement. Although lacking a moat, there was a big
pool or lake before its main gate, and this was spanned by a primitive
bridge with a portcullis beyond it. Here we found the keeper of the
gate, a sturdy bearded monk, filthy in aspect if servile in manner. He
seemed not a little awed by our uniform and equipment, but when he
caught sight of the girl on Leon's saddle, a broad grin animated his
features and he no longer delayed to open.
So we rode into a small courtyard and there tethered our horses. The
chapel lay to the south of this, and there came to us rude sounds of
Gregorian chanting, which is the fashion in their Church, and very
melodious when executed by the best singers. Those who now recited the
sacred office were not of such a class, and their barbarous voices
suggested that we were in Araby rather than in civilised Europe. This,
however, did not concern us. Our desire was for food and shelter, and
following a monk into a vast refectory we signified our wants to him
and commanded him to satisfy them. In his turn he did not appear
unwilling to oblige us, and motioning us to sit at the table, he went
from the refectory and left us alone.
Now I should tell you that the girl Zayde had entered this monastery
with some reluctance, and in spite of Leon's endearments she seemed
very ill at ease while we remained there. Leon, on the other hand, had
found his best spirit, and was in the mood for any adventure which
might come to him. Perhaps the church and the habit suggested the
absurdity on which he now set his heart, for, turning to me suddenly,
he said:
"How now, my uncle, is not this the very place for a wedding? What
would you say if I told you that I was going to marry Zayde? Is she
not beautiful enough? Look at her and tell me honestly what you think."
I answered that he was making a fool of himself and bade him be silent.
The girl half understood his meaning, I think, for the colour came and
went from her pretty face, and she watched him with eyes that plainly
acquiesced in any such determination. None the less his words offended
me, and I did not wish to hear them repeated. Though these monks were
not of my own religion, I respected them, and would not have profaned
their holy building. So much Leon must have learned from my looks, for
he slapped me gaily upon the shoulder and said that I was not born to
be a jester.
"What is marriage, my uncle?" he asked. "A few words gabbled by the
priest, and neither the one nor the other caring a pin's point about
them. Why should I not marry Zayde? She is young, and, I will wager,
well born. I am a bachelor and free to do what I please. What is
there to prevent my making her my wife if I choose?"
I rejoined that he had said the same thing of Valerie St. Antoine, and
at the mention of her name he flushed and became a little serious.
"Valerie St. Antoine is dead," said he; "why do you remind me of her?"
"Because in my hearing you swore to her to marry no other woman."
"Oh, my dear uncle, how easily one imposes upon you!" And at the same
thought he burst out laughing, and catching the girl in his arms, he
kissed her as though she were already much more to him than an
acquaintance of the roadside.
It was at this point that the monk returned to us, followed by many of
his brethren. They were all rugged men, bearded and of evil
countenance, and I perceived in a moment that they recognised us for
what we were--the enemies and the invaders of their country. Not a
sign of hospitality did we detect upon any one countenance in that
formidable group. They swarmed about us as though willing enough to do
us a mischief if they dared, and so threatening became their manner
that we both drew our swords, and Leon a pistol as well.
This put a new complexion on the affair. The most part of them now
stood back a little, while their prior, a venerable man with a great
gold cross on his breast, held out his hands as though in supplication
and addressed us rapidly in the Russian tongue. When he discovered
that we could only answer him in monosyllables he made a gesture of
despair, and turning to the keeper of the refectory, he gave him an
order whose nature was soon apparent. The fellow left the room, but
returned anon with three flagons of their native wine and some vast
loaves of black bread, which seems to be the only sort procurable in
this God-forsaken country. These viands were set upon the table and we
were bidden to eat and drink, while the monks stood about and watched
us very curiously.
I have told you that all these faces were strangely alike, as is ever
the case when men are old and bearded and of the same nationality. One
face, however, struck me as familiar. It was that of a young monk who
tried to hide himself amid his brethren, but when I would have verified
my suspicions, he turned his back upon me and left the room without
remark. The others continued to force their meagre hospitalities upon
us, offering the wine freely, but keeping it, I observed, from the girl
at their side. She, indeed, appeared to be _anathema maranatha_ to
these holy men. Perhaps it was the first time that a woman had ever
sat to bread in their refectory; but however it may have been, it was
grotesque to find them afraid so much as to touch the hem of her
garment, and as curious about her as though she had been a wild animal
in a menagerie.
Their antics made Leon laugh incontinently, and his laughter was shared
by the girl, though not as freely as might have been expected from such
a lady. To me it seemed that she had become aware suddenly of some
peril in the place and was anxious to be gone from it. I observed her
pluck Leon by the arm and make an appeal to him of a kind I could but
imagine. When he told me in a whisper that she spoke French after all,
needless to say I was very much astonished.
"Very well," said I, "she will understand your love-making now."
He agreed that it was so.
"The priests will marry us after dinner," says he, "and we will take
her to Smolensk. What an adventure, my uncle! Is not war the father
of all adventures, as I have often told you?"
I made some commonplace remark and tried to stay the hand of the monk,
who was refilling my glass with very fiery spirit. Truth to tell, this
now mounted to my head, as it had mounted to Leon's already, and
presently the scene before me became confused and unreal, while the
walls were reeling before my eyes and the roof threatening to fall on
my head. I detest a drunkard, and this condition occurred to me as
very shameful. On the other hand, I had drunk but little of their wine
and could not account for my condition; but when I called to the monks
for water they proffered me a drink of another kind, and so potent was
this that I lost consciousness almost immediately, and must have slept
for many hours before I came to my senses again.
V
It must have been near midnight when this happened, and the moonlight,
shining in the glade where I lay, soon showed me that I was alone.
Oddly enough, the monks had carried me to the very place where the
carriage had been robbed, and when I got the stiffness out of my limbs
and the dizziness out of my head I perceived that this was as we had
left it, and the scene unchanged, save that the dead had been carried
away. I knew the place to be but a quarter of a mile from the
monastery, and wondered why they had carried me so far. But chiefly I
began to think of my nephew and the girl, and to speculate upon their
fortunes.
It was no light thing to be left there in the forest with the Cossacks
all about and my regiment bivouacked God knows where, and a chance of
being eaten by wolves into the bargain. On the other hand, I had a
great fear for Leon, and was almost ready to believe that they had
killed him in the monastery. Certainly such fellows would have done
anything for the treasure, and very possibly Leon's head had been
stronger than mine and he had contested its possession with them; in
which case I did not doubt they had slain him, and the fact that I was
alone seemed to warrant the supposition.
Now this was troubling me, and I had a great fear both of the place and
of the hour, when I heard a sound of voices in the glade, and presently
made out the figures of horsemen moving amid the trees.
At first I took them to be Cossacks, and was about to make off as best
I could, when to my great surprise and pleasure I heard Leon himself
calling to me. Never was the sound of a voice more welcome.
"Leon!" I cried, and running up to him I found myself surrounded by a
squadron of the Red Hussars, in the midst of whom Leon himself was
riding his own horse and leading mine by the bridle.
"Well met, my uncle!" says he, in his boyish humour. "And so they have
not put the habit on you after all. We have ridden three leagues in
quest of you, and here you are at the very door. Well, that is lucky,
for time presses, and there is good work to do. What do you say to a
little fire to warm our hands on such a night?"
I told him that it would be an excellent thing, though I had then no
idea of his meaning. His affection for me was very real, and while his
speech made a jest of it, I could see how pleased he was that he had
found me in the wood.
"It was that cursed liquor of theirs," says he. "I have never drunk
its like. We must have both dropped off like children in a cradle, and
then they carried us out. I woke up God knows where, and but for these
good fellows I might still be in the same place. Now we are going to
teach the holy friars a lesson. Do you realise that they have got the
woman and her jewels, and we must burn them out to recover them? Come
along, my uncle. Here is an adventure that is only just beginning."
He seemed greatly pleased with himself, and rode jauntily enough, as
though the event were greatly to his liking. My own wit had grown a
little clearer by this time, and I could acquiesce in his determination
to have it out with the monks. After all, they were not of our faith,
and they had treated us very scurvily. The girl was no business of
theirs, and even if the treasure had been looted, they had neither part
nor lot in the affair. It was plainly our duty to teach them a lesson
and to recover the property which the fortunes of war had bestowed upon
us; and with this in our minds we rode up to the gate of the monastery
and beat upon it insistently.
"No more of their liquor for me," says Leon, as he snapped a pistol in
the lock of the great gate and then pulled their bell furiously. "We
will give them a taste of our vintage and see if it goes to their
heads. If it doesn't, I fancy that a prick from the point of a sword
may well go somewhere else. Rest assured, dear uncle, we will have our
pockets full of diamonds before the day breaks, and the girl upon my
saddle-bow. Let us see what kind of a chant these holy men like best.
Upon my word, they sleep like dogs after a hunting!"
Truly it was surprising that, after all the hullabaloo we had made, no
one opened to us. The great monastery showed no light of any kind
whatever. Both doors and windows were heavily barred as though against
a ruthless invader, and listen as we might we could hear no sound
within. The subterfuge merely angered Leon. He began to understand
that even a squadron of hussars is powerless against a barrier of iron,
and that for all we could do to the holy men within we might as well
have been in Moscow. This, as I say, had not occurred to him before,
and he now rode round and round the precincts as though there must be
some loophole in the vast wall which defied us, some gate which the
carbines of the company could force. We found none, and the men's
chagrin was undisguised. They had been promised food and loot if they
took the place, and yet they were as far from taking it as any child
would have been.
"You will never do it," said I to Leon. "The wolves have gone to
ground, and nothing but fire will fetch them out. You should have
brought a gun, my boy; that would have made short work of them."
He admitted it, and began to blame himself for his stupidity. The
artillery, according to his reckoning, was three leagues from the
place; but presently one of the hussars remembered that some of Marshal
Ney's guns were with the van of the rearguard and could not be farther
than a league from the place.
"We can have them here by dawn," said the fellow, and there being
nothing else for it we dispatched half a dozen of them at full gallop
to bring a field piece to the place. The gunners, we said, would come
readily enough when the story of the loot was told to them. Never had
I known one of the Grand Army turn from that, whatever the circumstance.
So the men rode off and left us upon the edge of the lake which
bordered the eastern wall of the monastery.
Though the day had been warm enough, the night fell intolerably cold,
and we wrapped ourselves in our cloaks, and having tethered the horses,
fell to walking round the monastery as though it would yet reveal its
secrets. Impossible to believe that a treasure of half a million
francs and one of the most beautiful women in Russia were locked up in
that gloomy place, and we, Velites and hussars of the Grand Army,
impotent to get one or the other. Yet such was a fact and such the
cunning of the monks that neither light was shown to us nor a footstep
to be heard in all the hours of our vigil.
Dawn had come before the hussars returned with half a battery from
Ney's own rearguard. We heard the sound of the horses in the wood, and
anon the heavy wheels of the guns crunching over the gravel of the
precincts. Then also we heard for the first time a signal from the
monastery, the great bell of which began to toll mournfully, as though
holding a requiem for the dead. The sound inspired us and brought
every man to his feet.
"The birds are caged after all," said I to Leon. "We will now see how
they can fly."
VI
The bridge across the lake was not stout enough to carry a gun; but we
quickly had three upon the brink of the water, and at the third
discharge we brought down the great door of wood and iron and not a
little of the masonry with it. Such a ragout of rusty iron and plaster
saints did not disturb us at all; and running triumphantly across the
bridge, we entered the monastery, swords drawn, to ferret out the monks.
Let me tell you in a word that we found no human being within the
place. From room to room we ran, crying to each other in chapel and
refectory and deserted cell, and hearing nothing but our own voices in
reply. Such a mystery was beyond any I had known. The monks were
here, we said, or else the devil himself had rung their bell. Nay,
there were traces of their recent occupation--rude beds just disturbed;
a faint fire in a primitive kitchen; the very candles lighted before
the icons or images in their chapel. Yet not so much as the girdle of
a monk in all the place, and as for the treasure, I do not believe the
fiend himself could have found a sou.
Well, there we were, some eighty men gathered in the morning light and
looking as foolish as school lads surprised in an orchard.
When our first rage had somewhat calmed, reason began to assert itself,
and we said that there must be some passage beneath the lake by which
the fathers had gone out. This caused a new quest of a highly
diverting kind, for now it was every ferret to find a hole, and never
did men work more willingly. To and fro they went like hounds in a
thicket. Panels they tried and traps in cellars they lifted. Walls
were pierced with our swords and doors were beat down, until the place
looked as though it had stood the ravages of a siege. Yet the mockery
of it all was that we might as well have hunted diamonds in the Place
de la Revolution at Paris. Not a trace of any secret passage did we
find, not a hole large enough to pass a dog; and when after hours of
labour we came to the conclusion that the mystery was beyond us, a
similar hunt in the woods yielded no more profit. Scattering wide
about the monastery in enlarging circles, we must have ridden twenty
leagues a man before we gathered at sunset to remind each other that
the Cossacks might trap us and that we must rejoin the army at all
costs. The graver peril guiding us, we rode off reluctantly, and soon
the fateful monastery and even the woods about it were lost to our view.
Night had fallen for the second time now, and we had entered a land of
great spaces. But more than that, we were traversing an enemy's
country, and anon we espied a large body of Cossacks--three thousand as
we judged--who plainly had observed us and immediately sat down to the
pursuit. This was a turn that we might have looked for, but, in our
imprudence, had risked. It was now each for himself and the devil take
the laggards. We should be sabred to a man if these assassins rode us
down, and, with a cry of "En avant!" we set spurs to our jaded horses
and rode wildly across the plain. God alone could tell whether we
should find the army or lose it.
It was a race for life with night and the mystery of night all about us.
How to tell you, of that memorable gallop I hardly know. No race at
Chantilly ever found horses so tired or riders at such a tension. On
we thundered, and on and on. Now we would cry that we were saved;
again that all was lost. The dust enveloped us in clouds; the moon
magnified the great plain we must cross to the woods beyond. Let us
gain them and we might find the army after all. I had said as much
when a figure pressed out of the hurly-burly and I knew it for that of
a Cossack. He slashed at me with a great scimitar, and slashed again.
Then I heard a pistol shot, and seeing the fellow reeling in his
saddle, I cut him through the skull to the very marrow. He was but the
first of twenty, and so we went riding and slashing and halloaing for a
league or more until we had bested their leaders and were alone on the
great plain once more. Alas! how brief a respite! We had thousands
still to deal with, and they rode after us like devils. No sailors
lost upon a black and stormy sea went more blindly than we upon that
fateful night. The army had vanished; we believed no longer that we
should find it.
Meanwhile, there were always the green devils behind us. I should give
no true picture of this affair if I denied that there was another side
to it. Some of our men fell and were hacked to pieces where they lay.
Others were overtaken and cut down by the ruthless swords of the
Cossacks. We could not lift a finger to save them--ten would have
perished for one who fell had we done so. Our one hope lay in the
swiftness of our horses. "En avant!" we cried, and again "En avant!"
We must find the army or perish. Ah, what a vain hope and how Fate
played with us! For my part I believed that all was over when I first
saw the fire in the wood and heard my comrades cry out. The Russians
were then but a hundred paces from us--the light that we saw might be
anything. God knows, we raced for it--and to discover what? A priest
and a woman--Zayde and the shorn monk, who I never doubted was a
Cossack all the time.
There they were--hobnobbing by a fire of logs and greatly startled when
they heard the sound of hoofs. Immediately they ran off into the
thicket, but not before we had recognised them--my nephew and I. They
were hardly gone when a louder cry arose from every Frenchman in the
wood; for now, as the very light of heaven itself, the glow of a dozen
bivouac fires burst upon our aching eyes, and with one voice we cried:
"Vive l'Empereur!" and swore that the army should avenge us.
VII
War teaches us many lessons, but none more useful than that of its
accidents. You will have said already that we had found the army and
that nothing remained but to ride up to the outposts and raise an alarm.
Let me answer that nothing was farther from the truth. We had neither
found the army nor were any of our comrades there to avenge us. When I
told this story in the year 1813 in Paris I well remember the laughter
it excited. A squadron of hussars saved by a flight of monks! Thus
the newspapers referred to it, and such was the naked truth. The monks
saved us--the monks from the monastery we had sacked.
Never have I forgotten that moment when this ridiculous turn first
became apparent to us. The Cossacks, I say, were at our heels, hope
gone from us, all thought of the army abandoned, when we saw the
bivouac fires and rode madly up to them. "Vive l'Empereur!" was our
cry. Then we learned the truth.
There were a hundred or more monks in the woods: they had kindled the
fires which cheered us. The Cossacks, perceiving the fires, and being
deceived as we were, waited for no verification of a fact which seemed
self-evident. The French army lay encamped in that place--who else
would be there in these days of war and of a mighty host upon the
march? Do you wonder that the mad devils stopped as though they heard
already the roar of our guns, that they wheeled about and were gone as
foxes whom the moon has discovered? They would have been madmen to
have done anything else. The race had been run and we were the
victors. So at least they thought, and so did Fortune smile upon us in
that fateful hour.
Be sure we did not linger upon an accident so remarkable. The monks
appeared to have no fear of us when we rode by, and the most part of
them lay sleeping. We forbore to intrude upon their dreams; and going
on at our leisure, we came up with the army at dawn and there recited
the details of this amazing adventure.
It remains but to say a word of the bell and the treasure.
I have often discussed it with Leon, and we have come to the conclusion
that there must have been monks left in the monastery after the main
body had fled, and that they sounded the alarm upon the approach of the
hussars. Their situation when we sacked that dismal building must have
been parlous indeed, and God alone knew where they hid from us.
As for the treasure, I have since learned that it belonged to a certain
Prince Karasin, a Tartar from beyond the Urals. He had been murdered
by his servants just as I had supposed, and the woman upon whom he had
lavished the treasure must have been a witness of the wickedness. Her
subsequent fate I am unable to tell you, but my nephew Leon, with his
accustomed gallantry, still swears that she was innocent, and, Valerie
St. Antoine excepted, by far the most beautiful thing he ever
discovered in that God-forsaken country.