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, Léon 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!"
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 Léon 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 Léon, 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,à la guerre comme à 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.
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.
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. Léon 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 Léon 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 Léon'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.
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. Léon'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 Léon 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.
Léon 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 Léon 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.
We returned to the bivouac of the Vélites 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.
I have spoken little of the Emperor during these momentous days; but it is to be remembered that I was chiefly with the rearguard, and so I hardly saw His Majesty until we came to Slawkowo.
Often have I been asked in Paris how he carried himself during the terrible retreat from Moscow, and how it came to be that he escaped the fate which overtook nearly half a million of men in that fearful flight. I have always answered that the Emperor took his fair share both of the risks and the hardships of the journey, and that, so far from travelling in his famous berline, he was often afoot, walking with and encouraging the soldiers who had served him so well.
It is true that he never suffered the miseries of an open bivouac, and that, wherever we went, some habitation was discovered at night to shelter him and the intimate members of his staff. Food, also, he had in abundance, and often shared it with his staff. What he could not escape was the peril of the Cossacks, who swarmed upon our flanks like wasps, and rarely left us an hour in which we could march with confidence.
Some there are who say that Napoleon Bonaparte was entirely without pity for his fellow men. I have seen it recorded that he marched over the dying and the dead with indifference, and was even heard to say that no man who had seen so many corpses upon a high road could ever believe in the immortality of the soul. This must be a malicious invention of his enemies, and it would not be accepted by any soldiers of the Guard. The Emperor suffered as we suffered during those unforgettable days, and more than one man could tell of the pity bestowed upon him by the general for whom he would so willingly have died.
Let me give you an instance of what befell us when we were some leagues from Smolensk and were approaching the village of Liadoui.
The Emperor had ridden out of the town that morning escorted by the grenadiers and the chasseurs, Prince Eugène with General Davoust and Ney being left behind in charge of the rearguard.
I myself set out with the Vélites about an hour after His Majesty had left, upon a road whereon familiar scenes were soon to be encountered.
The army had got no food in Smolensk, and its sufferings began again directly we reached the open country. Just as heretofore, men fell out and perished before the eyes of their helpless comrades. Some would stagger for a little while like drunken men, stretching out their arms to us and craving pity; others went mad in their delirium, and I remember well with what horror we saw a dragoon gnawing madly at the neck of a frozen horse, while his lips were red with his own blood. To all this we had now become inured, and, knowing the impossibility of helping the poor wretches who succumbed, we could but shut pity from our hearts and bend our heads to the bitter wind which swept over this God-forsaken land.
It was during this march that I came up with the Emperor, who had been riding with the grenadiers and was now halted in a picturesque group near by the edge of a thicket.
Here we found a poor woman whose baby was but two days old, and who mourned the loss of this infant—frozen stark dead—as though she had been at her own home in Paris. She was a cantinière of the fusiliers, and her husband, an old soldier who had fought at Jena, did what he could for her; but it was all of no avail, and despite His Majesty's command that I myself should attend her and that she should be given of the best from the Imperial supplies, she expired in the snow before our eyes.
The Emperor was greatly affected by this distressing occurrence, and when he saw that the poor woman was dead he commanded me to accompany him, intimating that there was hardly a surgeon left in his entourage. This compliment pleased me very much, remembering how we had parted, and I rode by His Majesty's side for some leagues, telling him all that I had seen and done since we quitted Moscow. What surprised me particularly was that he made no mention of Mademoiselle Valerie, nor of her visit to him at Slawkowo and of the episode which had led up to it. It was his wont, however, thus to treat the officers he liked best, and if I had been doubtful of his favour on that occasion, I could take heart when he pinched my ear suddenly as we came to the village of Liadoui and said with a smile: "You will remain with me to-night, major; I have something very much in your line."
This was a quite unexpected compliment, and brought the blood to my cheeks. I could not readily imagine upon what service His Majesty would employ me, but I spent the day in anxious speculation, and when he summoned me at about nine o'clock that night I was all agog, as you may well imagine.
Why had I been thus chosen, and what was the employment?
You shall see now how very strange an affair it turned out to be.
The village of Liadoui is built of wood upon an open situation not many leagues from Krasnoë. The Emperor slept at the post-house, a modest edifice which two companies of the fusiliers were to guard. I myself got a bivouac with the priest, who needed more than one blow from the butt end of a musket before he was glad to see me. The whole situation of the little force in Liadoui would have been considered dangerous at any other time, but we had to take the best we could, and the fact that there were Russians on both flanks had ceased to trouble us while we could get food and shelter.
For the first time now for many a day I got a dish of beef and rice that night, and a bottle of wine to wash it down. This His Majesty sent me from his own table, and be sure I shared it with my comrades. We were in consequence quite a happy company, and we sang "Veillons au salut de l'Empire" as merrily as we might have done in the barracks at Paris. Then came His Majesty's summons for Major Constant to attend him at once; and quitting my comrades with reluctance, I put on the great fur coat which I had carried from Moscow, and went across to the post-house.
Much to my surprise I found the Emperor alone. He sat in a spacious room overlooking the street, and the remains of his dinner were still upon the table. Clad in the well-known grey overcoat and the little cocked hat, without which none of us would have recognised him, I perceived also that he had a heavy cape of fur about his shoulders and wore fur-topped boots almost to his hips. He seemed mightily pleased to see me, and, pouring out a glass of wine, he bade me drink it.
"Do you remember this place?" he asked me as the first question.
I told him that the Vélites had not passed that way before, having taken the northern road to Moscow. He, however, hardly waited for my answer, but, watching me drink the wine, he said:
"I see that you do not know it. That is to the good; you will not ask me unnecessary questions. Now drink your wine and come and see your patient. She is young—you will not object to that. The Vélites, I understand, are critical; it is for that reason I chose a surgeon from your ranks."
He laughed as though pleased at the jest. Buttoning the fur cape closely about him, he left the room immediately, and I followed him, the wine freezing upon my moustache as soon as we were out in the bitter night.
Never have I known a cold so intense nor a wind that shrivelled the flesh so quickly. Yet the scene itself was picturesque enough, and under any other circumstances a man might have stopped to marvel at it. The moon now shone full and clear from a cloudless sky; the trees about Liadoui glistened with a thousand diamonds of the frost; the snow beneath our feet was as hard as iron and burnished with a sheen of silver light. Imagine upon this wooden houses with all their windows aglow, dark forms moving here and there, the distant rumble of cannon upon the road, and even the echo of musket shots, and you will see the picture as I saw and remember it.
Whither was the Emperor going, and upon what errand? I could not so much as imagine his purpose when we quitted the post-house and, crossing the street, entered upon a narrow footpath which seemed about to lead to the neighbouring forest. The peril of such a journey, with the Cossacks all about us and the night hawks everywhere, would have been patent to a child, and it even amazed an old soldier like myself, who could but marvel at such imprudence.
Was it possible that His Majesty could be about to visit the Russian camp secretly, as so many of our brave fellows had done?
I dared for the moment to believe it, until the shape of a house emerged suddenly from the shadows and I saw that we had come to a considerable habitation upon the very brink of the woods. To my astonishment this was guarded by sentinels, and no sooner were we out of the shadows than one of them challenged us angrily.
"Salut de l'Empire," said His Majesty, advancing with a smile, and, the man having brought his musket to the salute, we passed the gate and entered the house.
Naturally we were expected. It was evident that His Majesty would never have gone upon such a journey if he had not known very well that he would find a welcome at the end of it. The army hears many stories and must listen at all times with prudent ears. We had mentioned the name of more than onebelle fillesince we had left Paris, and we knew that we should mention many another before we returned there. So you will imagine my surprise when it was not a young woman but a very old one who greeted us upon the threshold of this remote house.
I saw she was old, but it would have puzzled a man to have guessed her age. Shrivelled and wan, with a skin of parchment and hair of flax, her eyes nevertheless glittered like those of a hawk, and her hands were ablaze with diamonds of wonderful lustre. Her dress was rich, and such as usually worn by noblewomen in Russia. She wore a silk robe trimmed with ermine, and the most wonderful cape of the same costly fur about her hunched shoulders. To His Majesty she was deferential beyond compare. She welcomed him with a curtsey full of the old-time stateliness, and to me she extended her hand to be kissed. Then she bade us enter the salle à manger of the house, and I perceived at once that supper was prepared there.
I have told you that it was an extensive dwelling, though built of wood, and certainly this apartment was fine enough for anything. The walls were everywhere hung with old French tapestry; the furniture must have come from our own Paris. There was china of Sèvres upon the table, and that extravagant porcelain in which the East and the West commingle and delight. Two liveried servants stood at the table's head and bowed low as the Emperor entered. He, however, appeared but ill at ease, and I plainly perceived that he was seeking someone whose presence he had expected.
This whetted my curiosity. The old lady herself, setting His Majesty at the head of her table, now sat down upon his right hand, and motioned me to a seat beside her. Then she made a signal to the lackeys, and instantly they began to serve us with all manner of luxuries unlooked for in such a place, and certainly not discovered since we had left Moscow.
The man who has lived upon horseflesh for many days is a good judge of any kind of cooking, and I could not but think, as I sat at the table, of that unhappy mendicant who had said to Louis XV., "Sire, how hungry I am!" and had been answered with the quip, "Lucky devil."
To me this Was a Gargantuan feast such as had never been surpassed in all my years.
We had the fine sturgeon in which the Russians delight, their own caviare, excellent mutton, and chickens which were matchless, and all washed down with the wines of Burgundy, and upon that with draughts of our own magnificent brandy. When we had finished we were even offered a little preserved fruit and some of the tobacco which the Russians smoke rolled in slips of paper. His Majesty condescended to try one of these, but made little of it, and presently it became apparent to me that he was anxious, and that his anxiety no longer brooked the control of silence.
"Madame," he asked without warning, "where is your daughter Kyra?"
The question had been expected, and madame lifted her wise eyes when she heard it.
"Ah!" she exclaimed in French, "so you are anxious to speak to Kyra again."
"Why not?" says His Majesty. "She told me many things I wished to hear; is that not a reason?"
"And your Majesty found them true?"
For an instant the Emperor seemed to be dreaming. Then, tapping the table lightly with his fingers, he said:
"In the main they were true. She told me that Moscow would be burned."
Madame Zchekofsky—for such I discovered the lady's name to be—feigned great pity.
"Ah, what a dreadful thing—and so many of your poor soldiers who suffered! Little did I think when I heard the child speak that such wisdom was in her keeping, but so it is, as your Majesty admits."
"Most willingly. I expected to hear more of it to-night. Is your daughter ill, or is she merely absent?"
Madame Zchekofsky shook her head.
"She is ill, sire; it is the bitter cold of this terrible winter. Otherwise she would have been by your Majesty's side to-night."
"Ah!" cried the Emperor, with a gesture Of disappointment; "then I must not see her?"
"I fear not. These visions are not to be encouraged, as I am sure Dr. Constant will tell you. Those who command them suffer much afterwards. Is it not so, doctor?"
I hardly knew how to answer her. It had come to me suddenly that this old woman was playing with both of us, and there flashed upon me the disquieting thought that His Majesty's life might even be in danger. Could the Russians have laid hands upon him at such a moment and carried him a prisoner to Petersburg, then indeed were the fortunes of my country imperilled, and a blow struck at the Empire from which it might never recover. Yet what was I to do? The Emperor was as good a judge as I of the situation, and it would have been the mere effrontery of a subordinate which would have reminded him of its dangers.
"Madame," said I, "these things do not concern men of common sense. When I go to bed at night the only vision that I look for is that of the morning sun. If your daughter be a prophetess, I am sorry for you both, for it has never seemed to me a profitable occupation. Discourage her if you can—that is my advice."
She shook her head.
"And yet you heard His Majesty say that she foretold the burning of Moscow?"
"A guess at hazard," said I. "What is more, madame, she may have known that your Emperor was about to burn it. These things are not done by one or two people, but by many thousands. It is quite probable that she should have heard of the intentions."
His Majesty smiled at this, yet the old hawk regarded me with some malice. What her object was—whether to push the fortunes of her house with the Emperor, or merely to advance his interest in her daughter—I could not then imagine; but I know now that she had intended to follow us to Paris and there to establish herself if she could.
My pessimism evidently angered her; she had looked for me to support His Majesty in this amiable humour.
"Well," said she, rising abruptly, "it is easy to put the matter to the proof. Kyra should not leave her room, but His Majesty may go there if he will. He shall then tell me if it were a guess or no. Do you desire that, sire?"
I could see that the Emperor was greatly pleased; he rose at once and waited for her to show him the way. In that brief interval I stepped to his side and begged to be permitted to follow him.
"A whim, if you like, sire. Perhaps I am also a prophet," said I, and we exchanged a glance I shall never forget.
The Emperor knew that he was in peril, then. Did he also know the nature of it? If so, he were wiser than I, who followed him merely upon an impulse for which I could not account.
We mounted a wide flight of stairs and stood for an instant before a great carved door at the head of them. The house was very silent, and the lackeys had disappeared. I could hear the distant sounds in the village and from the high road the rumble of cannon and the blare of bugles. But these were fitful and easily to be explained. What I did not like was the uncanny silence in the dwelling itself. We entered a great ante-room on the first floor, and from that passed to a little bedroom such as a young girl might have occupied. It was empty, but madame knocked at the door which led from it, and, receiving no immediate answer, we all sat down and waited in the darkness.
"The child sleeps," said the Emperor.
The old woman muttered something I could not distinguish.
"Of what nature is her illness?" His Majesty asked next.
"It has been a fever," says madame; "but she is better of that, and now suffers only from weakness."
"In which case we must wait until she awakes. Do you not suggest a better place than this, madame?"
Madame rose at this rebuke.
"I will go in myself," she said; but before she could take a step the door of the adjoining room was opened and Mademoiselle Kyra herself appeared.
Her dress was a long white robe tied with a girdle. Her hair was like her mother's, but more silken in texture, and fell, as the hair of many Russian women does, almost to her feet. I thought her amazingly beautiful—by far the prettiest woman I had yet seen in this damnable country, and, in truth, I envied His Majesty such good fortune. He, however, seemed in no way impressed by the child's looks, but only by her attitude, which was that of one who walked in her sleep and might not be awakened without danger. Stepping back, with his finger on his lips, the Emperor let the girl go slowly from the room to the great antechamber beyond, we following upon tiptoe, as though we spied upon this unlooked-for apparition.
For a moment I thought that Mademoiselle Kyra was about to descend the stairs to the dining room we had left, but she crossed the landing at the stairs head, and, opening a door upon the far side, entered another bedroom, and from that a spacious apartment furnished like a chapel. Here the Emperor followed her, but madame forbade me to go. I had an instantaneous vision of a picture of the Madonna and a lamp burning before it. Then I saw the girl stumble and appear about to fall, but His Majesty caught her in his arms, and madame immediately closed the door upon them.
"You can wait," she said, and, closing the door of the bedroom and drawing a heavy curtain over it, she left me standing sentinel in that black, dark room.