odden on by an invisible foot. And before the dawn broke he would be
stiff and cold. Parties so visited have been known to rise like one man,
abandon the fire and run off into the night in mute panic. Or a comrade
talking to you on the march would stammer suddenly in the middle of a
sentence, roll affrighted eyes, and fall down with distorted face and
blue lips, breaking the ranks with the convulsions of his agony. Men
were struck in the saddle, on sentry duty, in the firing line, carrying
orders, serving the guns. I have been told that in a battalion forming
under fire with perfect steadiness for the assault of a village, three
cases occurred within five minutes at the head of the column; and the
attack could not be delivered because the leading companies scattered
all over the fields like chaff before the wind.

"Sergeant Peter, young as he was, had a great influence over his men.
It was said that the number of desertions in the squadron in which he
served was less than in any other in the whole of that cavalry division.
Such was supposed to be the compelling example of one man's quiet
intrepidity in facing every form of danger and terror.

"However that may be, he was liked and trusted generally. When the end
came and the remnants of that army corps, hard pressed on all sides,
were preparing to cross the Prussian frontier, Sergeant Peter had enough
influence to rally round him a score of troopers. He managed to escape
with them at night, from the hemmed-in army. He led this band through
200 miles of country covered by numerous Russian detachments and ravaged
by the cholera. But this was not to avoid captivity, to go into hiding
and try to save themselves. No. He led them into a fortress which was
still occupied by the Poles, and where the last stand of the vanquished
revolution was to be made.

"This looks like mere fanaticism. But fanaticism is human. Man has
adored ferocious divinities. There is ferocity in every passion, even
in love itself. The religion of undying hope resembles the mad cult of
despair, of death, of annihilation. The difference lies in the moral
motive springing from the secret needs and the unexpressed aspiration
of the believers. It is only to vain men that all is vanity; and all is
deception only to those who have never been sincere with themselves.

"It was in the fortress that my grandfather found himself together with
Sergeant Peter. My grandfather was a neighbour of the S--------- family