then, consulting his map, he exclaimed,
"This is one of the streams which flow into the Dnieper: this must be
our guide, and we must follow it; it will lead us to that river, which
we must cross, and on the other side we shall be safe." Accordingly, he
immediately proceeded in that direction.

A lame peasant was the only inhabitant they could discover; but even
this was an unlooked-for piece of good fortune. He told them that they
were within the distance of a league from the Dnieper, but that it was
not fordable there, and could not yet be frozen over. "It must be so,"
the marshal remarked; but when he was reminded that a thaw had just
commenced, he added, "it does not signify; we must pass, as there is no
other resource."

At last at about eight o'clock, after passing through a village, they
soon came to the termination of the ravine, and the Russian, who walked
before, halted and pointed out to them the river.

Finally, about midnight, the passage began; but the first persons who
ventured on the ice called out that it was bending under them, that it
was sinking, that they were up to their knees in water; and immediately
after that frail support was heard cracking and splitting, as in the
breaking up of a frost. All halted in consternation.

Ney ordered them to pass only one at a time: they proceeded with
caution, not knowing sometimes in the dark whether they were placing
their feet on the ice or into a chasm; for there were places where they
were obliged to clear large fissures, and jump from one piece to
another, at the risk of falling between them and disappearing forever.
The first hesitated, but those who were behind kept calling to them to
make more haste.

When at last, after several of these dreadful panics, they reached the
opposite bank and fancied themselves safe, a perpendicular steep,
slippery as glass, opposed their landing, and many were again thrown
back upon the ice, either bruised by it, or breaking it in their fall.
It would seem, indeed, as though this Russian river and its banks had
contributed with regret, by surprise, and by compulsion, as it were, to
their escape.

But what they spoke of as being the most painful of all, were the
trouble and distraction of the females and of the sick, when it became
necessary for them to abandon, along with the baggage, the remains of
their fortune, their provisions, and, in short, all their resources both
for the present and the future. They were seen