e that with such a burden I could not keep pace with my comrades. In
fact, I soon lost sight of their columns, and could discern nothing around
me but the white and silent plain.

"I still walked on, when presently appeared a troop of Cossacks galloping
toward me, with furious gesticulations and wild cries.

"The captain was by this time completely insensible, and I resolved,
whatever it might cost me, not to abandon him. I laid him down on the
ground, and covered him with snow; then I crept beneath a heap of dead
bodies, leaving, however, my eyes at liberty.

"Presently the Cossacks came up, and began to strike with their lances
right and left, while their horses trampled us under their feet. One of
these heavy beasts set his foot upon my right arm, and crushed it.

"My friends, I did not speak, I did not stir; I put my right hand into my
mouth to stifle the cry of torture which nearly escaped from me, and in a
few minutes the Cossacks had dispersed.

"When the last of them had disappeared, I quitted my refuge, and proceeded
to disinter the captain. To my joy he gave some signs of life; I contrived
to carry him with my one arm toward a rock which offered a sort of
shelter, and then I laid myself by his side, wrapping my cloak round us
both.

"The night had closed in, and the snow continued to fall.

"The rear-guard had long since disappeared, and the only sound that broke
the stillness of the night was the whistle of a bullet, or the howling of
the wolves feasting on the corpses that lay stretched around.

"God knows what thoughts passed through my soul during that dreadful
night, which, I felt sure, would be my last upon earth. But I remembered
the prayer which my mother had taught me long before, when I was a child
at her knee, and bending low, I repeated it with fervor.

"My children, that did me good, and remember always that a sincere and
fervent prayer is sure to comfort you. I felt astonishingly calmed when I
returned to my place by the captain. But the time passed, and I had fallen
into a state of half stupor, when I saw a group of French officers
approach. Before I had time to speak to them, their chief, a little man,
dressed in a furred pelisse, stepped forward toward me, and said:

'What are you doing here? Why are you away from your regiment?'

"'For two good reasons,' said I, pointing first to the captain, and then
to my bleeding arm.

"'The man says true, Sire,' said one of those who followed