t after him, drawn by a sudden chord
of sympathy to this stranger, who had the rare capacity of confining
himself to the business in hand.

By daybreak the next morning Louis was at the hospital of St. Basile.
It had been prepared by the Duc de Bassano under Napoleon's orders when
Vilna was selected as the base of the great army. When the Russians
entered Vilna after the retreating remnant of Murat's rabble, they found
the dead and the dying in the streets and the market-place. Some had
made fires and had lain themselves down around them--to die. Others were
without food or firing, almost without clothes. Many were barefoot. All,
officers and men alike, were in rags. It was a piteous sight; for half
of these men were no longer human. Some were gnawing at their own limbs.
Many were blind, others had lost their speech or hearing. Nearly all
were marred by some disfigurement--some terrible sore, the result of a
frozen wound, of frostbite, of scurvy, of gangrene.

The Cossacks, half civilized as they were, wild with the excitement of
killing and the chase of a human quarry, stood aghast in the streets of
Vilna.

When the Emperor arrived, he set to work to clear the streets first, to
get these piteous men indoors. There was no question yet of succouring
them. It was not even possible to feed them all. The only thought was to
find them some protection against the ruthless cold.

The first thought was, of course, directed to the hospitals. They looked
in and saw a storehouse of the dead. The dead could wait; but the living
must be housed.

So the dead waited, and it was their turn now at the St. Basile
Hospital, where Louis presented himself at dawn.

"Looking for some one?" asked a man in uniform, who must have been
inside the hospital, for he hurried down the steps with a set mouth and
quailing eyes.

"Yes."

"Then don't go in--wait here."

Louis looked in and took the doctor's advice. The dead were stored in
the passages, one on the top of the other, like bales of goods in a
warehouse.

Some attempt seemed to have been made to clear the wards, but those
whose task it had been had not had time to do more than drag the dead
out into the passage.

The soldiers were now at work in the lower passage. Carts began to
arrive. An officer told off to this dread duty came up hurriedly smoking
a cigarette, his high fur collar about his ears. He glanced at Louis,
and bowed to him.

"Looking for some one?" he asked.

"