Page:The Czar, A Tale of the Time of the First Napleon.djvu/162

152 deprecated his vengeance. The strange silence touched even his haughty soul with surprise and misgiving. In all Moscow there remained not one person with whom he could communicate, not one of sufficient importance to answer his inquiries or to receive and execute his commands. The only official he could find was the director of the Foundling Hospital, who had refused to desert his helpless little flock at the coming of the wolf.

The Bourse and the buildings around it were already wrapped in flames when the French entered the city; but the immense extent of Moscow prevented anything like a general alarm, and the first four-and-twenty hours of the Occupation passed quietly away. On the following night, however—a night much to be remembered in the annals of Russia, of Europe, and of freedom, that of the 15th of September—the sad Russian host on its weary march, and the immense crowd of weeping fugitives that followed it, beheld a sight magnificent indeed but most terrible. A sheet of flame, fanned by a tempestuous wind, grew and spread until it wrapped the wide extent of the devoted city like a shroud of fire. The entire horizon was illuminated. Three quarters of a league away men could see to read by the lurid light. Nor did the dawn of day bring any respite to the horror. The sun turned sickening from the scene, its pale beams unable to contend with that fierce red glare. Another sun arose, and yet another;—still the conflagration raged. It took six awful days and nights to consume that holocaust, the grandest the world has ever seen. But when at last the flames died slowly out, nine-tenths of the ancient capital of the Czar were laid in ashes.