fields, broke against the dark column,
rose in a turmoil of flying icicles, and subsided, disclosing it
creeping on without the swing and rhythm of the military pace. They
struggled onward, exchanging neither words nor looks--whole ranks
marched, touching elbows, day after day, and never raising their eyes,
as if lost in despairing reflections. On calm days, in the dumb black
forests of pines the cracking of overloaded branches was the only sound.
Often from daybreak to dusk no one spoke in the whole column. It was
like a _macabre_ march of struggling corpses towards a distant grave.
Only an alarm of Cossacks could restore to their lack-lustre eyes a
semblance of martial resolution. The battalion deployed, facing about,
or formed square under the endless fluttering of snowflakes. A cloud of
horsemen with fur caps on their heads, levelled long lances and yelled
"Hurrah! Hurrah!" around their menacing immobility, whence, with muffled
detonations, hundreds of dark-red flames darted through the air thick
with falling snow. In a very few moments the horsemen would disappear,
as if carried off yelling in the gale, and the battalion, standing
still, alone in the blizzard, heard only the wind searching their very
hearts. Then, with a cry or two of "_Vive l'Empereur!_" it would resume
its march, leaving behind a few lifeless bodies lying huddled up, tiny
dark specks on the white ground.

Though often marching in the ranks or skirmishing in the woods side
by side, the two officers ignored each other; this not so much from
inimical intention as from a very real indifference. All their store of
moral energy was expended in resisting the terrific enmity of Nature and
the crushing sense of irretrievable disaster.

Neither of them allowed himself to be crushed. To the last they counted
among the most active, the least demoralised of the battalion; their
vigorous vitality invested them both with the appearance of an heroic
pair in the eyes of their comrades. And they never exchanged more than
a casual word or two, except one day when, skirmishing in front of the
battalion against a worrying attack of cavalry, they found themselves
cut off by a small party of Cossacks. A score of wild-looking, hairy
horsemen rode to and fro, brandishing their lances in ominous silence.
The two officers had no mind to lay down their arms, and Colonel Feraud
suddenly spoke up in a hoarse, growling voice, bringing his firelock to
the shoulder:

"You tak