on the banks or in the river; and
sixteen thousand were left behind to the mercy of the Cossacks.

At Vilna the people were terrified at the sight of this inhuman rabble,
which had commanded their admiration on the outward march. And the
commander, with his staff, crept out of the city at night, abandoning
sick, wounded, and fighting men.

At Kowno they crowded numbly across the bridge, fighting for precedence,
when they might have walked at leisure across the ice. They were
no longer men at all, but dumb and driven animals, who fell by the
roadside, and were stripped by their comrades before the warmth of life
had left their limbs.

"Excuse me, comrade? I thought you were dead," said one, on being
remonstrated with by a dying man. And he went on his way reluctantly,
for he knew that in a few minutes another would snatch the booty. But
for the most part they were not so scrupulous.

At first D'Arragon, to whom these horrors were new, attempted to help
such as appealed to him, but Barlasch laughed at him.

"Yes," he said. "Take the medallion, and promise to send it to his
mother. Holy Heaven--they all have medallions, and they all have
mothers. Every Frenchman remembers his mother--when it is too late. I
will get a cart. By to-morrow we shall fill it with keepsakes. And here
is another. He is hungry. So am I, comrade. I come from Moscow--bah!"

And so they fought their way through the stream. They could have
journeyed by a quicker route--D'Arragon could have steered a course
across the frozen plain as over a sea--but Charles must necessarily be
in this stream. He might be by the wayside. Any one of these pitiable
objects, half blind, frost-bitten, with one limb or another swinging
useless, like a snapped branch, wrapped to the eyes in filthy
furs--inhuman, horrible--any one of these might be Desiree's husband.

They never missed a chance of hearing news. Barlasch interrupted the
last message of a dying man to inquire whether he had ever heard of
Prince Eugene. It was startling to learn how little they knew. The
majority of them were quite ignorant of French, and had scarcely heard
the name of the commander of their division. Many spoke in a language
which even Barlasch could not identify.

"His talk is like a coffee-mill," he explained to D'Arragon, "and I do
not know to what regiment he belonged. He asked me if I was Russki--I!
Then he wanted to hold my hand. And he went to sleep. He will wake among
the angels