ough it without a scratch,"
Julian's friend, the sergeant, said to him. "Well, you will never see
such a fight again if you grow gray in the service. Where are those who
scoffed at the Russians now? They can fight, these men. It was a battle
of giants. No one could have done more than we did, and yet they did as
much; but to-morrow we shall win."

"What! do you think we shall fight again to-morrow?"

"That is for the Russians to say, not for us. If they stand we must
fight them again. It is a matter of life and death for us to get to
Moscow. We shall win to-morrow, for Napoleon will have to bring up the
Imperial Guard, 20,000 of his best troops, and the Russians put their
last man into the line of battle to-day, and, never fear, we shall win.
But I own I have had enough of it. Never before have I hoped that the
enemy in front of us would go off without a battle, but I do so now. We
want rest and quiet. When spring comes we will fight them again as
often as they like, but until then I for one do not wish to hear a gun
fired."

"I am sure I do not, sergeant," Julian agreed; "and I only hope that we
shall get peace and quiet when we reach Moscow."

"Oh, the Russians will be sure to send in to ask for terms of peace as
soon as we get there," the sergeant said confidently.

"I hope so, but I have great doubts, sergeant. When people are ready to
burn their homes rather than that we should occupy them, to desert all
that they have and to wander away they know not where, when they will
fight as they fought to-day, I have great doubts whether they will talk
of surrender. They can bring up fresh troops long before we can. They
will have no lack of provisions. Their country is so vast that they know
that at most we can hold but a small portion of it. It seems to me that
it is not of surrender they will be thinking, but of bringing up fresh
troops from every part of their empire, of drilling and organizing and
preparing for the next campaign. I cannot help thinking of what would
happen to us if they burnt Moscow, as they have burned half a dozen
towns already."

"No people ever made such a sacrifice. What, burn the city they consider
sacred!--the old capital every Russian thinks of with pride! It never
can be, but if they should do so, all I can say is, God help us all. Few
of us would ever go back to France."

"So it seems to me, sergeant. I have been thinking of it lately, and
after the way in which the Russians came on,