find myself in the midst of Russians?" But as the cheerful blaze of the nearest fire grew clearer and more distinct, and he saw figures moving around it, fear and hesitation vanished. He felt nothing but a wild longing to get close to it, which grew every moment more intense. Running, slipping, staggering along as best he could, at last he threw himself on the ground before the fire, in the very midst of the group that surrounded it.
"Eh! what have we got here?" cried some one with an oath. The words were French, so much at least was plain to Henri's bewildered senses; and at the same time a very savoury odour reaching his nostrils reminded him that he was famishing with hunger.
The next moment he was roughly seized and dragged upon his knees. "What do you want here? You are none of us. Be off with you, and pretty quick too!" cried a fellow dressed in a velvet coat which had once belonged to some Moscow exquisite.
Slowly and stiffly Henri rose to his feet. "Comrades," he said with a bewildered air, "it is you who are making a mistake. I am one of you—a Frenchman—a private in the Tenth Infantry—"
"Hang the Tenth Infantry! It is every man for himself here. You are not one of our coterie.[1] We cannot feed all the stragglers of the grand army. Begone this instant, or—" A push with the butt end of his musket finished the sentence.
The heartless cruelty of his countrymen filled up the measure of Henri's cup of suffering. His spirit was broken. With no power, with scarcely even a wish to struggle any longer for his life, he staggered slowly away, intending to lie down in the nearest snow-drift and die.
- ↑ The French, during the retreat, formed themselves into little "coteries" of twelve or fifteen. If an outsider tried to join himself to one of these, he was pitilessly driven away to die, sometimes even murdered.
