n pursuit among the precipices and
clouds. One saw whole armies passing over places where chamois-hunters
took off their shoes and walked barefoot, holding on by their hands
to prevent themselves from falling. Three nations had come from three
different parts to a meeting-place in the home of the eagles, as if to
allow those nearest God to judge the justice of their cause. There were
times when the frozen mountains changed into volcanoes, when cascades
now filled with blood fell into the valleys, and avalanches of human
beings rolled down the deepest precipices. Death reaped such a harvest
there where human life had never been before, that the vultures,
becoming fastidious through the abundance, picked out only the eyes of
the corpses to carry to their young--at least so says the tradition of
the peasants of these mountains.

Souvarow was able to rally his troops at length in the neighbourhood of
Lindau. He recalled Korsakoff, who still occupied Bregenz; but all his
troops together did not number more than thirty thousand men-all
that remained of the eighty thousand whom Paul had furnished as his
contingent in the coalition. In fifteen days Massena had defeated three
separate armies, each numerically stronger than his own. Souvarow,
furious at having been defeated by these same Republicans whom he had
sworn to exterminate, blamed the Austrians for his defeat, and declared
that he awaited orders from his emperor, to whom he had made known the
treachery of the allies, before attempting anything further with the
coalition.

Paul's answer was that he should immediately return to Russia with
his soldiers, arriving at St. Petersburg as soon as possible, where a
triumphal entry awaited them.

The same ukase declared that Souvarow should be quartered in the
imperial palace for the rest of his life, and lastly that a monument
should be raised to him in one of the public places of St. Petersburg.

Foedor was thus about to see Vaninka once more. Throughout the campaign,
where there was a chance of danger, whether in the plains of Italy, in
the defiles of Tesino, or on the glaciers of Mount Pragal, he was
the first to throw himself into it, and his name had frequently been
mentioned as worthy of distinction. Souvarow was too brave himself to be
prodigal of honours where they were not merited. Foedor was returning,
as he had promised, worthy of his noble protector's friendship, and who
knows, perhaps worthy of Vaninka's love. Fi