THE CAMP BY THE RIVER
I
There were two days of cold, clear weather after we left Slawkowo. It
was upon the second of these days that the adventure of which I shall
now speak befell me.
The sufferings which the army endured had not by any means abated at
this time. We found but scant supplies in the town, and there had not
been that distribution of rations we had expected. It is true that the
first-comers pillaged brandy from the cellars of Slawkowo, but this was
poor sustenance for men whose greatest necessity was bread, and in this
respect we quitted the town as poor as we entered it. Our one
consolation was that the north winds no longer nipped us and the snow
had ceased to fall. Just as heretofore, men devoured the horses that
fell by the way and drank their blood greedily. Nay, we were in no way
surprised when we heard that the Croats were devouring each other, and
the cruel tales of our comrades' sufferings which were told at every
bivouac could readily be believed. Naturally, only the bravest kept
their courage through such an ordeal. The cunning we had with us, and
they went stoutly enough because of their cunning. There will always
be men who are able to get food while others starve, and in such the
Grand Army was not deficient. These happy fellows kept their secrets
for the most part, and would often pretend to take pot-luck with us,
while we knew all the time that they had hidden stores in which we did
not share. The fact led to bitterness sometimes, and such men were
shunned by their fellows as unworthy of the spirit of comradeship which
animated the Guard.
I met more than one of these cormorants after we left Slawkowo, but
none whose conduct so much mystified me as that of Captain Payard of
the dragoons. In converse he was the best of good fellows--a merry,
curly-haired gentleman, whose eyes were as blue as a woman's and whose
smile was medicine for every ill. Payard pretended to eat horse with
us, and yet we knew that this could not be his staple diet, for he was
as fat as a Normandy lamb and as gay. Many tried to guess his secret,
but none discovered it, and he would have carried it back to Paris with
him but for a bottle of brandy I hoarded at my saddle-bow, and opened
on the night we left Slawkowo. So deeply did he drink of this that he
became quite tipsy, and, crouching by my side over the bivouac fire in
the wood, he told me his story without shame.
"You all say that I live well," he protested. "True enough; but, bon
camarade, I steal from the Russians."
"What?" cried I. "You are known to them, then?"
He laughed at the idea of treachery.
"Do you not know me better than that, major?" said he, his eyes
flashing in the crimson light. "I tell you that I go to the Russian
camp and steal what I want. Is it not very simple, and should you not
all have thought of it for yourselves?"
I was very much surprised, and began to question him closely. How had
he got the password? Was it not a highly dangerous undertaking, and
had he not been fortunate to escape with his life?
All this he treated lightly. There was danger, of course, but what is
danger to men who are dying of starvation? He admitted that he had a
friend among the Russians, but declared very stoutly that such
friendship had been of great service both to him and to the Emperor.
Finally, he said:
"Come with me, major, and bring your nephew, and we will dine among the
Cossacks to-morrow night. Are you prepared to take your chance? Very
well. We will start a little before sunset, and we can rejoin the
column on the following morning. Come now, and I promise you as good a
dinner as you could get in our own Paris this night."
The request astonished me very much, and I thought upon it a little
while. Leon had been away inspecting the horses, but when he returned
I mentioned the matter to him, and he did not hesitate a moment. Of
course we must go. Did it not promise us an adventure, and was not
anything better than the starvation we suffered? I think, indeed, he
would have leapt from a mountain-top if there had been food at the
bottom; and even at my age I could ask myself what perils counted for
men who marched daily over the bodies of their comrades to a city of
visions.
II
Now this was all very well, but, in truth, the affair was rash enough
to have satisfied the most reckless.
Remember that we marched like a beaten army, dejected and without
spirit; thousands dying every day as we went: the road across the snows
black with the bodies of our comrades who had fallen. Only the spirit
which had conquered at Austerlitz and Jena prevented our swift
annihilation by the Russian wolves, who barked at us from every
thicket. If a man lost his way, the sabres of the Cossacks quickly
showed him the road, or the hatchets of the peasantry put an end to his
sufferings. And yet this laughing Payard could propose that we should
brave the fastnesses of these savages just to find a good dinner beyond
them--a soldier's invitation, surely, perhaps a madman's project.
I shall not dwell upon this aspect of the adventure, for it must be
apparent to all. Whatever misgivings I had at dawn passed away as the
day waxed and waned and the pangs of a savage hunger devoured me at
nightfall. A starving man is no better than a starving dog when he is
famished, and the Velites were becoming but animals these latter days.
So you will not wonder that Payard found us ready when he called us at
sunset and that we set off as willingly as lads from a school. We were
going to dine for the first time since we had quitted Moscow. Happy
pilgrims upon a gourmet's road--how little we knew what was in store
for us!
I should tell you here that the regiment had chosen but a bleak place
for its bivouac that night; a night when the wind began to blow again
and the moon shone clear in a starlit heaven. The road crossed a
shallow valley, in the midst of which was a frozen river. The banks of
this were not high enough to give much shelter from the bitter blasts,
but such as it was our men availed themselves of it and lay in the
hollows by the water, without fires, since the woods were some miles
away to the south, and there was not a human habitation to be seen.
When all that could be done for the good fellows had been accomplished,
and those who perished of fatigue were carried out of sight of the
living, Payard called to Leon and myself and we set off briskly over
the frozen waste. The time to dine had arrived, though as yet we knew
nothing of that strange cafe in the wilderness which should harbour us.
"It is an hour's ride from here," said Payard as he mounted his horse;
"nothing at all, my friends, and no Cossacks until we come to the
woods. Then we shall be ready for them. En avant, mes amis, I am
going to feed you well."
With this he set off at a brisk trot and we followed him without
protest. The way lay in the valley of the river I have mentioned, and
we followed it for at least two miles until the bank rose more steeply
and afforded no longer a safe footing for our horses.
Nevertheless, we pressed on until the woods drew down to the water's
edge, and Payard declared that we had need of horses no longer. From
this time, as he quickly told us, we must go afoot for safety's sake;
and tethering the willing animals to the first of the trees about the
river's border, we entered the forest.
III
Our confidence was wonderful. We knew no more than the dead where this
merry fellow was leading us, and yet we followed him as joyous
adventurers upon the gayest of pilgrimages. When we heard a distant
bugle and surmised that we were not far from the Russian camp, we were
still unable to check his headlong advance, and though it was difficult
to imagine that he knew the country, our questions concerning it were
asked in vain.
"A la bonne heure," he would say when checking his step. "I have
promised you a good dinner, and I am taking you where you will get it.
Do not trouble me until we arrive at the house. Then I will talk to
you."
To this he added the intimation that it was dangerous to talk in a
place where the trees had ears. "Do you wish to dine with the
Cossacks?" he asked us. It was a question we could answer very
decidedly in the negative.
Had we any doubt upon the latter point the sound of galloping horses
would have made his request for prudence seem reasonable enough. It
was evident that he was still following the river bank and that this
was his only guide. The woods about were open and gloriously carpeted
by the glistening snow. The long stems of the pines, all whitened by
the frost, stood for so many sleeping sentinels of that hidden army of
Russians which lay beyond them. Yet he did not hesitate, and it was
only when the sounds of approaching horsemen drew quite near to us that
Payard plunged suddenly into the undergrowth above the river bank and
bade us follow him for our lives.
"The Cossacks!" cried he, and that was a word we understood too well.
They came up presently, a sturdy troop all frosted with the snow, but
talking very merrily together as men who had been upon a pleasant
picnic. I had no doubt that they had just visited one of our own
bivouacs, and it was hard to lie there and watch them, knowing that
they had sabred many an honest Frenchman that day. Yet prudence
dictated such a course, and we lay in the brushwood hardly daring to
breathe while they swept by. When they had gone, Payard crawled out of
the bush, and shaking the snow from his massive shoulders, he told us
pleasantly that we were going to dine with them.
"The camp is a third of a mile from here," he said, "and dinner will be
waiting. Let us make haste, my friends, or it will be cold."
It was all an enigma to us, you may be sure, but that was not the time
to interrogate him about it, and we were content to follow in his steps
while he pressed on through the wood and presently emerged upon a
considerable clearing, beyond which were the bivouac fires of the
Russians. The sight of this brought us to a halt, and all gathering
together at the foot of a great chestnut tree, we began to argue about
it for the first time.
"Yonder is the village of Vitzala," says Payard, indicating some lights
far off through the trees. "There has been a Russian camp here under
General Volska for the last two months. Madame Pauline is in the first
house across the clearing. If we reach that safely, the rest is easy.
Her husband has gone to Petersburg, and we are not likely to be
troubled by him. Of course, you know that she is a Frenchwoman."
We knew nothing of the kind. As a matter of fact, we had heard her
name for the first time, but not with astonishment. It was evident
from the beginning that he had formed a friendship with one of the many
Frenchwomen who marched out of Moscow with our army; but that we should
find her in such a place and camped with Cossacks who were sabring our
fellows was a surprise indeed.
"What brings her here?" I asked him bluntly enough.
He told me in a word.
"Colonel Tcharnhoff of the dragoons is in love with her. He is
supposed to be the richest man in the Russian army; his regiment lies
yonder in the village, but he himself has gone north to meet the
Military Council. I promise you that you are about to meet a very fine
woman--and one who knows how to dine," he added with a laugh.
His candour disarmed us. We knew these Frenchwomen too well to doubt
his story, and all that remained was to discover the house which
harboured this interesting lady. Payard said that he had been
instructed to follow the bank of the river until he came to the
clearing, and that this would bring him to an isolated cabin upon the
outskirts of the village. There he was to find Madame Pauline. The
direction was plain, but the darkness of the night rendered the pursuit
of it difficult.
We were now within a few hundred paces of the Russian camp. There was
a wide lake of snow between ourselves and the sheltering thicket, and
it was apparent that any moment might discover our presence to the
Russians. More prudent men would have gone back as they had come; but
we were as famished as the wolves, and crying to the captain to lead
on, we bent our heads and ran boldly for the shelter of the distant
woods.
Luck favoured us to this point. Standing upon the far side of the
thicket to listen, we soon perceived that the camp was not alarmed. It
is true that we could see the bayonets of the sentries moving between
the trees, perhaps a hundred yards from the place where we stood; but a
far more pleasant sight was a lonely wattled hut on the very brink of
the wood, and this we determined could be no other than Madame
Pauline's abode.
"As plain as the nose on the end of your face, and a much better
colour," said Payard, rubbing his own vigorously. "She would never
have sent for me if her house had been within the lines. At any rate,
my friends, I will take my chance," and upon that he walked straight up
to the door of this strange habitation and knocked lightly upon it.
The next moment it was opened by a man who answered him in French; and
beckoning us to follow, the merry captain entered the hut without
another word.
IV
I have described this building as a hut, and yet when we entered it we
discovered that it deserved a better appellation.
The relic of an ancient outpost in the woods, it had been used formerly
by the frontier guards, and, indeed, I have learned since that it
served for officers' quarters in the days of the great Queen Catherine.
The building that we saw from the thicket was but an ante-chamber to a
larger apartment which had been furnished in the oddest manner for
madame's occupation.
A great stove glowed here, and the walls were hung with the costliest
skins in lieu of tapestries. For carpet there was but a footing of
straw rushes, and this was in odd contrast to the luxury elsewhere.
Better to our liking was a wooden table, lacking a cloth, but spread
with food such as we had not seen since we left Moscow.
Bread was here--that bread for which we would have bartered our souls
yesterday. We espied a great round of beef which would have fed a
company of men, and a saucepan of potatoes, steaming upon the stove of
which I have spoken. Not only this, but dainties innumerable littered
madame's board; and our eyes feasted already upon the preserved fruits
which every Russian loves; sweetmeats from Germany, fine liqueurs and
bottles of wine, all promising a veritable orgy to men who had suffered
the rigours of that unnameable retreat.
Naturally, Leon and I thought of these things first, but presently we
heard a voice from a room beyond, and madame herself now appeared and
greeted us with a welcome which nothing could have surpassed. Were we
not Frenchmen, and was she not our sister in the remote wilderness? Be
not astonished that we kissed her upon both cheeks as though we had
known her all our lives.
Let me describe this wonderful personage for you as well as memory
permits. Above the middle height, with a superb figure and limbs which
would not have disgraced a grenadier, she wore the green uniform of the
Cossacks of the Guard, and mighty well it became her, as we all agreed.
Not a beautiful woman as the canons go; her hair was frankly red,
though cut short and hardly reaching to her shoulders; yet there was a
power of character in her face which none could mistake, and she had
the kindest smile that I have ever seen upon a woman's face. To us her
welcome was unqualified.
"You are at home here, my friends," she said; "are you not all
Frenchmen, and am I not your sister? Ah, how well I know what you have
suffered! Would that I could bring the others here to this mean house
and give them what they deserve! Such as it is, however, my
hospitality is always at the service of yourselves and your comrades.
Shall we now sit down to table? You will not tell me that you are not
ready."
We told her nothing of the kind, but followed her as dogs that hear the
huntsman's step. The peril of the house, the chance of our being
discovered there, the consequence of such discovery, troubled us not at
all. We could have taken the meat in our hands and gnawed it as hounds
will gnaw a bone, and I would say that there could have been no more
revolting spectacle than that of our appetites at madame's hospitable
board. Nothing came amiss to us--meat and drink; sweetmeats and
liqueurs--we devoured them in a frenzy, and not until we had gorged
ourselves shamelessly did a man of us put a question as to our
situation.
Oddly enough, madame heard us with some discomfort, I thought, directly
we began to speak about the regiment. Turning to Payard, she said:
"My friend, do you not understand that I am the wife of a Russian
officer, and can tell you nothing? I have promised you shelter in this
house, and you may count upon me; but do not expect me to betray
anything or anybody. Rather let me fill your glasses and drink the
toast that I shall propose to you: 'France, our own beloved country.
To our safe return!' Will you not pledge that?"
Naturally we responded with all our hearts to such a pleasant
sentiment; nay, I think we had drunk the toast at least three times
when, without warning, the French servant burst into the room, and,
white as death, he cried, "Madame, here is Colonel Tcharnhoff returned!"
V
Now, I do not think at the first we understood the significance of this
intrusion.
Remember that we had dined very well, and that our heads were turned by
the good wine madame had offered us. Perhaps we had forgotten that we
were in the heart of the enemy's camp, and that for a word they would
have cut us to pieces. I remembered vaguely that Payard had spoken of
a certain Tcharnhoff as one of madame's lovers; but for the moment it
was difficult to connect the terror of the serving man with the gossip
of the roadside.
In the same spirit my nephew Leon laughed foolishly when he heard the
servant, and immediately cried, "Let Colonel Tcharnhoff come in!" This
cry Payard himself repeated, banging the table with his fist and
seeming to think it the best of jokes. Madame alone rebuked us by her
attitude. I have never seen a woman so obviously overcome by terror
and yet so much mistress of herself.
"Keep your seats," she said, half rising as she spoke. "Say nothing
until I have told him." And with that she stood erect at the head of
the table and waited for the colonel to enter.
Her attitude sobered us. The tragic terror of the woman, her fine
determination, the splendid figure she cut there at the table's head,
were so many rebukes upon our foolish levity. Instantly we realised
that we were in deadly peril by the advent of this unknown man, and
turning as he entered, we scrutinised him closely.
Ferdinand Tcharnhoff was then in his thirty-fifth year. They say that
if you scratch a Russian you will find a Tartar; but this fellow was an
Eastern from the top of his head to the soles of his feet, and no man
could have mistaken him. Bearded like a savage Englishman, his face
might have been that of an animal, and his cunning eyes those of a pig.
He wore the white uniform of the dragoons with their cloak and helmet,
and his sword was still unbuckled when he came in. Never shall I
forget the look of astonishment which crossed the man's face when he
beheld us at his table.
"How?" he cried in his own tongue, and then he looked from us to madame
and round about at his servants as though fearing that a trap had been
laid for him. It was at this moment that madame advanced, both her
hands outstretched in welcome, and laughing with the wit of a born
actress.
"These are my friends and relatives from Paris," she cried. "I am
feeding them, Ferdinand. I told you that I would do so if ever I had
the chance."
It was a bold stroke and worthy of the woman. The man himself seemed
quite taken aback at her hardihood, and, acting in the same spirit, he
now made us a most profound bow and then handed his cloak and sword to
the servant.
"Gentlemen," said he, in passable French, "I will not say 'Welcome to
my board!' for that is obviously too late. Let me trust that you have
enjoyed a good dinner, an occupation in which I hope to imitate you
with madame's permission."
He looked at her, and she immediately gave her orders for food to be
brought. I think she had expected a different turn to the adventure,
and was as perplexed as we ourselves at the colonel's attitude. Here
was a man who should have been raging against us as spies, sitting by
us in the most affable mood and eating and drinking as though he were
in our house and not we in his. For all that I doubted him even in his
most condescending moments, and whispering a word to Leon, I suggested
that we should go. This brought suspicion to a head. The Russian
became sullen in an instant.
"You will stay," he said, and he banged the table with his fist as
though he had leapt suddenly to the command. "You will stay,
messieurs. Are you not madame's guests? This is no time of night to
be in the woods. There are dangers abroad, messieurs--and wolves.
Upon my word, I am surprised at you--to mention such a thing."
We resumed our seats, and he fell to smiling again; yet it was with the
snarl of one of those very wolves he had mentioned. A low cunning
laugh, the like of which I have never heard, betrayed a deeper purpose
than that of hospitality. We, in our turn, understood then the whole
peril of the situation. The man was playing with us as a cat with
mice; he had but begun the role he meant to undertake.
"You are foolish, messieurs," he went on presently; "indeed most
foolish. Consider what would happen to you if you left this house
against my will. The sentries would detain you, and there would be an
inquiry at head-quarters. We are very unkind to traitors when they
visit our camps, and we have our own way of dealing with them. Do you
remember Major Royate, of the Engineers, whom the Cossacks took at
Plavno? They tied him to a tree, I think, and the wolves ate him at
sundown. Then there was your Lieutenant de Duras, whom they burned on
a fire of logs at Letizka; and another, I think, was hacked to pieces
with sabres on the eve of Borodino. All this is very terrible, but in
your words, _a la guerre comme a la guerre_. You say that you fight
with barbarians, and you will not quarrel with their customs. Are they
not poor savages whom you have come here to correct? Messieurs, I do
not know what would happen to you if I gave the alarm from that window
at this minute. It would not be the water, for the river is frozen;
but it might very well be the wolves, as your ears will bear witness if
you will be good enough to listen."
With this he opened the rude window of the barn, and far away in the
thick of the forest we could hear the dismal howling of the famished
brutes. What was the man's intention, or why he talked in this way, I
could not imagine; but presently, as he drank deeper, his reserve
became less and his true meaning more apparent. Not for a moment had
he been deceived by the tale which madame told him. One of us, he
knew, was her lover, and that man he meant to discover and to kill.
"Frenchmen," he said presently, passion growing upon him as he spoke,
"I will let two of you leave this house if the third remains. Cast
lots amongst yourselves, if you please; it is a matter of indifference
to me. But one man I will give to my Cossacks, so help me Heaven!"
And with that he laughed savagely, as though this sudden humour pleased
him mightily.
To this it was impossible to make any answer. We held our tongues,
while Madame Pauline crossed over to the man's side and began to speak
rapidly in Russian. It was plain, however, that she both appealed and
commanded in vain. An Eastern passion for revenge suffered no woman's
entreaty. He knew that none of us would betray the others, and he
believed that he had us all in the net of a devilish vengeance.
"Two of you shall go," he kept saying--"two. I will give you five
minutes by the clock. If you do not make a choice then, it is for my
Cossacks to deal with you. As you please, messieurs; that is my last
word."
We had no response to make. The man's anger and the woman's despair
were both very dreadful things to hear and see, and we turned aside
from them to argue the question in quick whispers. Plain was it that
our hope of life hung upon a thread, and, all our fighting instinct
returning, we began to say that we must deal with Tcharnhoff ourselves.
Should we make a dash from the house, or should we seize the man where
he stood? The latter seemed the wiser thing. We risked all by doing
so, and yet might win all. No sooner was the course determined upon
than, snatching his sword from the chair where it lay, Payard made a
dash for the Cossack. Alas! that was the last thing he ever did in his
life, for a pistol-shot rang out at the very instant, and our friend
fell dead across the table. Tcharnhoff had shot him; and the smoke had
not lifted when Pauline herself stabbed her lover to the heart, and he
rolled headlong on the floor, almost at my feet.
"Go!" she cried, her face white as with the pallor of death. "I will
say that you killed him. Go and leave me."
We waited for no other word. In the distance we heard the report of a
musket and the alarm spreading through the camp. We had an instant
between us and eternity, and be sure we made the best of it.
VI
It was a glorious night when we reached the open, a full moon shining
upon us and the snow glistening as though dusted with diamonds.
We could see the bivouac fires of the camp still burning brightly and
the figures of the awakened Cossacks moving about them. You may
imagine how the spectacle quickened our steps, and with what wild hope
of life we crossed the frozen ground to the horses which stood for our
salvation.
For myself I do not think I have ever run so fast in my life, and never
shall run again, as upon that amazing night. Already my heated fancy
would have it that I could hear the thunder of hoofs upon the snow and
the savage cries of the men whose sabres would cut us down. The
stillness all about us, the silent majesty of the frozen woods, the
utter solitude of the steppes enhanced this impression and all the
gloom of it. What fools we had been to come on such an errand at all!
And how dearly we had paid for it already! It now remained to prove
that we could become men even in the face of death most revolting.
I say that we ran, but that is hardly the word for it. So difficult
was the ground, so slippery, that sometimes we would be on our feet and
sometimes sliding like lads at a school. The clamour behind us was now
unmistakable, but plainly it converged upon the house we had left, and
we doubted not that Pauline's wit would give us grace. When we at last
came up to the horses, neither of us could speak for sheer exhaustion
of the chase, but we clambered headlong into our saddles, and, letting
poor Payard's charger go whither it would, we galloped across the open
steppes, and entered the first of the woods beyond them. It seemed now
that we were safe, yet what men have ever suffered a greater delusion?
Hardly had we gone three hundred paces when we came face to face with a
party of horsemen, and, reining back in confusion, we discovered them
to be Cossacks returning to the camp.
The rencontre was swift and a surprise upon both parties. We, being on
the look-out, were naturally the first to draw rein; but the Cossacks,
upon their side hardly less watchful, were quickly at the halt and
eyeing us wonderingly. Such a droll state of affairs would have amused
any man who read an account of it in a book, but it was serious enough
to us.
For a brief instant it appeared that we were lost beyond hope, and had
nothing to do but to kneel in the snow before these brigands. There
were some eighty of them as I could see, and every man now whipped his
sword from his scabbard. We were but two against them, and not fifty
paces from the place where they were halted, and you will judge of our
astonishment when they did not fire upon us. This very interval of
silence was to be our salvation, for suddenly my nephew wheeled his
horse about, and crying to me to follow him, he spurred wildly from the
wood. Be sure that I imitated him with all my blood afire and a wild
hope of life leaping suddenly to my heart. Their horses had been long
afoot, said I, while ours had rested. We might outride them yet, and
were madmen if we did not put the matter to an issue.
VII
So behold us galloping headlong from that fearsome place, the snow
flying beneath our horses' hoofs, our heads bent and our swords drawn.
For a time I knew not whether we were gaining or losing upon the savage
horde which followed us. Wild cries echoed in my ears; the night was
black about me; I heard the stertorous breathing of the willing horses,
the thunder of their hoofs upon the cruel ground. Then a great silence
fell. Leon hailed me, and I could hear his voice distinctly.
"They are done with," he said; and upon that, "What do you make of it?"
"How?" cried I. "They are not following us!" And then I reined back
to listen.
We must have travelled a league by this time, but the face of the bleak
country was unchanged. Dense woods and gigantic lakes of snow were the
outstanding features, and over all the paralysing silence of a Russian
night. Good God! what a solitude, and yet we had won freedom in it!
"They did not think us worth powder and shot," says Leon presently.
"Perhaps they were hungry, or"--and here he pointed grimly over his
shoulder--"they may have preferred the camp to that."
I looked at him curiously.
"Of what are you speaking?" I asked him, and at that he shrugged his
shoulders.
"Listen," he cried, "and then answer for yourself, mon oncle."
I took a pull upon the rein again, and bent my ear towards the wood. A
weird sound, like to nothing but the howling of the doomed, broke the
silence all about and made its meaning clear. We had lost the
Cossacks, but the wolves were on our track; aye, thousands of
them--leaping, barking, snarling from their fastnesses, and bending
their heads to the chase like hounds that follow a scent. Good God,
what a sight that was to see! With what terror the spectacle filled us
as we let the maddened horses go and rode again from an enemy more
terrible than man!
I had heard of the wolves of Russia, but had seen but few of them
during the terrible days of the retreat.
Perchance the fact that we had rarely left our comrades might have had
something to do with it, for naturally the fret and stir of an army in
retreat would scare such beasts even at such a season; but here the
story was otherwise. They had scented the horses, and nothing now
would stop them. Gallop as we would, they gained upon us, and
presently were leaping at the throats of the terrified brutes we rode.
In vain we discharged our pistols, struck at them with our swords, and
cried for aid to any that might be near us. They came again, with jaws
distended and dripping fangs, and we had not gone the third of a league
when one caught Leon's horse by the throat and, hanging there, dragged
the brute shrieking to the ground.
Surely any man might now have believed that the end had come, and that,
whatever else befell, the regiment would see us no more.
There was the horse being torn to pieces before our eyes; there was my
nephew striking at the wolves with his sword while I endeavoured
maladroitly to lift him to my saddle. The latter task was soon
rendered impossible by the ferocity of the savage beasts who now
swarmed about us. They had my own horse down before a man could have
counted ten, and, leaping from it as it fell, I ran headlong towards
the woods for any shelter that could be found.
Our lives now did not seem worth a scudo. There must have been
thousands of wolves about the horses; a black wood was upon our left
hand, a wide, boundless plain before us. Nevertheless, that dim hope
which sustains men in all emergencies remained, and, crying to one
another to take courage, we entered the wood. There, to our wonder and
amazement, we discerned immediately the haven of our salvation. It was
a woodlander's hut, not twenty yards from the open, and hardly had we
espied it before we were locked and barred within and laughing at the
very magnitude of our misfortune.
VIII
It must have been about three o'clock of the morning by this time.
The hut itself had one window looking over the plain, but was as bare
of furniture as any room in a madhouse. Leon's tinder-box revealed a
floor of baked earth and a stove which lacked fuel, and this, with a
shelf upon which there stood empty jars, was all the ornament this
fortress possessed. To us, however, it was more beautiful than any
palace, and, taking a drain of brandy from our flasks, we climbed up to
the window and looked out over the snows.
Our poor horses were but bones by this time, and there were hundreds of
the wolves fighting about the carcasses. Less to our liking were the
slinking forms about the hut itself and the savage howling which
assailed our ears. It was clear that the brutes had scented us out,
and would stand sentinel until their courage was screwed up to
something more. We could count them by the hundred as they prowled
round and round the hut, leaping often at the window, and snarling when
the butts of our pistols drove them back. Some, indeed, went so far as
to spring upon the roof, and there yapped and howled most dismally;
while, as for ourselves, we could but keep guard and wonder what the
day would bring. Would it send aid to us, or must we be prisoners
there until we perished of hunger and cold? This was a question
neither dared answer. The minutes became as hours while we waited for
the dawn. The horror of the snow paralysed our faculties and almost
forbade speech between us.
I cannot tell you truly of all that happened during that appalling
vigil. It is odd to look back to it now and to remember the light
words with which Leon and I would endeavour to cheer each other; how we
laughed and jested when our nerves were at a tension and it seemed that
any minute the cold might overcome us and the door be left open to
death in its most revolting aspect. But an instant of carelessness,
and there would have been a dozen brutes at our throats, and we should
have shared the fate of the wretched horses whose very bones were now
vanished from the plain.
All this was in our minds, yet our lips made no mention of it.
"Courage," we said; "the day will help us." It seemed a vain hope, for
who should be in this wild place when the sun rose again? You answer
the Cossacks. Aye, true enough, it was the Cossacks who came just as
the day had dawned, and the red light of the morning sun shimmered upon
that frozen sea.
Leon heard them sooner than I, but the brutes were quicker than he. I
had taken my turn at the window, and had just crashed my pistol into a
gaping mouth which menaced me, when the wolves around suddenly pricked
their ears and turned their heads towards the east.
"There are horsemen at the gallop," said Leon at the same moment; and,
listening, I heard the muffled thunder of hoofs upon the snow.
"Would they be our own men?" I asked him.
He shook his head.
"We must be five leagues from the high road. Which of our fellows
would come this way?"
I could not answer that, and had no need to, for hardly were the words
spoken when a troop of Cossacks appeared at a gallop, and instantly the
wolves closed in about them. This was a fine sight, and one I never
shall forget. To watch those dashing horsemen hewing and firing and
slashing at the pack about them, to wonder why they thus rode
desperately, to speculate upon their destination, were all in the
mind's task as the picture unfolded. Were we the pursued, or had they
other quarry? Certainly they would not have to look far for us, for
there in their track upon the snow lay our saddles and bridles, at
which the famished brutes still gnawed.
Now, it occurred to me that they must certainly discover us, and that
our shrift would be short. The beasts themselves, scared by the
thunder of the sounds, broke presently and fled to the woods whence
they had come. The Cossacks rode up to the very place where our
bridles lay, and yet they did not halt. What drove them thence? I
will tell you in a word--the Red Hussars of our own Guard were at their
heels, hunting them as though they were vermin of the woods, and
cutting them down without pity like wheat that falls before a sickle.
Ah! what a sight that was to see. What sounds were those to hear--the
shrieks of the poor devils whose skulls were cleaved, the cries of
triumph of the victorious pursuers--they were music in our ears. Yet
saner men would have asked how this majesty of war would help us. But
five minutes had passed when pursued and pursuers were gone as they had
come, and we were alone again. The situation had changed but in
this--that no wolf now yapped about that wattled hut. We climbed from
its window, and went out through the wood without fear. We were alone,
and far from salvation. At least, we thought so for a full hour, until
a second troop of the Red Hussars appeared in the open, and we hailed
them joyfully.
Then, indeed, was the end of the story written, and then we knew that
we should see our comrades again.
IX
We returned to the bivouac of the Velites that night, and there told
our story. Many mourned the gallant Payard, but there were others who
asked of Madame Pauline. What had happened to her after we had fled
from the camp? We could not answer the question then, but I answered
it in the following June in Paris, when I met her in the Rue de Rivoli
and recognised her instantly. A fine woman, messieurs, and one who is
a very good judge of a dinner, believe me.