ofs of two
galloping horses rang on the frozen snow, and the awakened battery fired
a volley that passed over the heads of the sleepers; the hoof-beats
rattled so fast on the iron ground that they sounded like the hammering
in a smithy. The generous aide-de-camp had fallen; the stalwart
grenadier had come off safe and sound; and Philip himself received
a bayonet thrust in the shoulder while defending his friend.
Notwithstanding his wound, he clung to his horse's mane, and gripped him
with his knees so tightly that the animal was held as in a vise.

"God be praised!" cried the major, when he saw his soldier still on the
spot, and the carriage standing where he had left it.

"If you do the right thing by me, sir, you will get me the cross for
this. We have treated them to a sword dance to a pretty tune from the
rifle, eh?"

"We have done nothing yet! Let us put the horses in. Take hold of these
cords."

"They are not long enough."

"All right, grenadier, just go and overhaul those fellows sleeping
there; take their shawls, sheets, anything--"

"I say! the rascal is dead," cried the grenadier, as he plundered the
first man who came to hand. "Why, they are all dead! how queer!"

"All of them?"

"Yes, every one. It looks as though the horseflesh _a la neige_ was
indigestible."

Philip shuddered at the words. The night had grown twice as cold as
before.

"Great heaven! to lose her when I have saved her life a score of times
already."

He shook the Countess, "Stephanie! Stephanie!" he cried.

She opened her eyes.

"We are saved, madame!"

"Saved!" she echoed, and fell back again.

The horses were harnessed after a fashion at last. The major held his
sabre in his unwounded hand, took the reins in the other, saw to his
pistols, and sprang on one of the horses, while the grenadier mounted
the other. The old sentinel had been pushed into the carriage, and lay
across the knees of the general and the Countess; his feet were frozen.
Urged on by blows from the flat of the sabre, the horses dragged the
carriage at a mad gallop down to the plain, where endless difficulties
awaited them. Before long it became almost impossible to advance without
crushing sleeping men, women, and even children at every step, all of
whom declined to stir when the grenadier awakened them. In vain M. de
Sucy looked for the track that the rearguard had cut through this dense
crowd of human beings; there was no more sign of their passage t