o look.

The brigand Napoleonder sat on his horse, holding his sides with
laughter, and shouted: "Aha! My old men are not to your taste! I
thought so! This isn't like playing knuckle-bones with children and old
women! Well, then, my honorable Messrs. Dead Men, I have never yet felt
pity for any one, and you needn't show mercy to my enemies. Deal with
them after your own fashion."

"As long as it is so," replied the corpse-soldiers, "we are your
faithful servants always."

Our men fled from Kulikova-field to Pultava-field; from Pultava-field to
the famous still-water Don; and from the peaceful Don to the field of
Borodino, under the very walls of Mother Moscow. And as our men came to
these fields, one after another, they turned their faces again and
again toward Napoleonder, and fought him with such fierceness that the
brigand himself was delighted with them "God save us!" he exclaimed,
"what soldiers these Russians are! I have not seen such men in any other
country."

But, in spite of the bravery of our troops, we were unable to stop
Napoleonder's march; because we had no word with which to meet his word.
In every battle we pound him, and drive him back, and get him in a
slip-noose; but just as we are going to draw it tight and catch him, the
filthy, idolatrous thief bethinks himself and shouts "Bonaparty!" Then
the dead men crawl out of their graves in full uniform, set their teeth,
fix their eyes upon their officers, and charge! And where they pass the
grass withers and the stones crack. And our men are so terrified by
these unclean bodies that they can't fight against them at all. As soon
as they hear that accursed word "Bonaparty," and see the big fur hats
and the yellow faces of the dead men, they throw down their guns and
rush into the woods to hide.

"Say what you will, Alexander Blagoslovenni," they cry, "for corpses we
are not prepared."

Alexander the Blessed reproached his men, and said: "Wait a little,
brothers, before you run away. Let's exert ourselves a little more. Dog
that he is, he can't beat us always. God has set a limit for him
somewhere. To-day is his, to-morrow may be his, but after a while the
luck perhaps will turn."

Then he went to the old hermit-monks in the caves of Kiev and on the
island of Valaam, and bowed himself at the feet of all the
archimandrites and metropolitans, saying: "Pray for us, holy fathers,
and beseech the Lord God to turn away his wrath; because we haven't
streng