Adieu Part 3

"It is the retreat of the rear-guard!" cried the major. "All hope is gone!"

"I have saved your carriage, Philippe," said a friendly voice.

Turning round, de Sucy recognized the young aide-de-camp in the flaring of the flames.

"Ah! all is lost!" replied the major, "they have eaten my horse; and how can I make this stupid general and his wife walk?"

"Take a brand from the fire and threaten them."

"Threaten the countess!"

"Good-bye," said the aide-de-camp, "I have scarcely time to get across that fatal river--and I MUST; I have a mother in France. What a night!

These poor wretches prefer to lie here in the snow; half will allow themselves to perish in those flames rather than rise and move on. It is four o'clock, Philippe! In two hours the Russians will begin to move.

I a.s.sure you you will again see the Beresina choked with corpses.

Philippe! think of yourself! You have no horses, you cannot carry the countess in your arms. Come--come with me!" he said urgently, pulling de Sucy by the arm.

"My friend! abandon Stephanie!"

De Sucy seized the countess, made her stand upright, shook her with the roughness of a despairing man, and compelled her to wake up. She looked at him with fixed, dead eyes.

"You must walk, Stephanie, or we shall all die here."

For all answer the countess tried to drop again upon the snow and sleep.

The aide-de-camp seized a brand from the fire and waved it in her face.

"We will save her in spite of herself!" cried Philippe, lifting the countess and placing her in the carriage.

He returned to implore the help of his friend. Together they lifted the old general, without knowing whether he were dead or alive, and put him beside his wife. The major then rolled over the men who were sleeping on his blankets, which he tossed into the carriage, together with some roasted fragments of his mare.

"What do you mean to do?" asked the aide-de-camp.

"Drag them."

"You are crazy."

"True," said Philippe, crossing his arms in despair.

Suddenly, he was seized by a last despairing thought.

"To you," he said, grasping the sound arm of his orderly, "I confide her for one hour. Remember that you must die sooner than let any one approach her."

The major then s.n.a.t.c.hed up the countess's diamonds, held them in one hand, drew his sabre with the other, and began to strike with the flat of its blade such of the sleepers as he thought the most intrepid. He succeeded in awaking the colossal grenadier, and two other men whose rank it was impossible to tell.

"We are done for!" he said.

"I know it," said the grenadier, "but I don't care."

"Well, death for death, wouldn't you rather sell your life for a pretty woman, and take your chances of seeing France?"

"I'd rather sleep," said a man, rolling over on the snow, "and if you trouble me again, I'll stick my bayonet into your stomach."

"What is the business, my colonel?" said the grenadier. "That man is drunk; he's a Parisian; he likes his ease."

"That is yours, my brave grenadier," cried the major, offering him a string of diamonds, "if you will follow me and fight like a madman.

The Russians are ten minutes' march from here; they have horses; we are going up to their first battery for a pair."

"But the sentinels?"

"One of us three--" he interrupted himself, and turned to the aide-de-camp. "You will come, Hippolyte, won't you?"

Hippolyte nodded.

"One of us," continued the major, "will take care of the sentinel.

Besides, perhaps they are asleep too, those cursed Russians."

"Forward! major, you're a brave one! But you'll give me a lift on your carriage?" said the grenadier.

"Yes, if you don't leave your skin up there--If I fall, Hippolyte, and you, grenadier, promise me to do your utmost to save the countess."

"Agreed!" cried the grenadier.

They started for the Russian lines, toward one of the batteries which had so decimated the hapless wretches lying on the banks of the river.

A few moments later, the gallop of two horses echoed over the snow, and the wakened artillery men poured out a volley which ranged above the heads of the sleeping men. The pace of the horses was so fleet that their steps resounded like the blows of a blacksmith on his anvil. The generous aide-de-camp was killed. The athletic grenadier was safe and sound. Philippe in defending Hippolyte had received a bayonet in his shoulder; but he clung to his horse's mane, and clasped him so tightly with his knees that the animal was held as in a vice.

"G.o.d be praised!" cried the major, finding his orderly untouched, and the carriage in its place.

"If you are just, my officer, you will get me the cross for this," said the man. "We've played a fine game of guns and sabres here, I can tell you."

"We have done nothing yet--Harness the horses. Take these ropes."

"They are not long enough."

"Grenadier, turn over those sleepers, and take their shawls and linen, to eke out."

"Tiens! that's one dead," said the grenadier, stripping the first man he came to. "Bless me! what a joke, they are all dead!"

"All?"

"Yes, all; seems as if horse-meat must be indigestible if eaten with snow."

The words made Philippe tremble. The cold was increasing.

"My G.o.d! to lose the woman I have saved a dozen times!"

The major shook the countess.

"Stephanie! Stephanie!"

The young woman opened her eyes.