Page:The Czar, A Tale of the Time of the First Napleon.djvu/203

Rh Moscow had been a few handfuls of rye soaked in water or a little horse-flesh.

Clinging to the arm of Féron was a form slight and worn, and evidently ready to sink with fatigue. "Peste! Mind what you are about there!" cried Féron sharply, as Henri de Talmont stumbled and sank to his knees in a snow-drift a little deeper than usual. Then, pulling him up again by main force and setting him on his feet—"Can't you see where you are going?" he asked.

"No, I cannot see," answered Henri in a weary voice. "Féron, you have been very good to me. But it is no use. You must let me go."

"I shall do no such thing. Here, my boy, take a pull at this;" and he put a flask filled with vodka to the lips of his friend. "Now you can see a little better," he said with a laugh, as the stimulant brought a momentary colour to the pale cheek of Henri. "Can't you hear too? Listen! there are wheels coming near us, and horse-hoofs. God grant it may be stores of some kind, and if so"—Féron paused a moment and set his teeth resolutely—"the Old Guard themselves, with the Emperor at their head, shall not keep them from us."

The wheels were already quite close, else under the circumstances they could not have heard them at all. A carriage drawn by four horses, and attended by outriders, came dashing by. It had only one occupant, a general of division, wrapped from head to foot in rich furs; but every available spot was crammed with packages and bottles. Some of the men sprang towards it, and clinging to the back or the sides, begged in piteous accents for bread, meat, spirits, even a little tobacco—anything "Monsieur le Général" would be good enough to spare them. The coachman and the outriders had to use their whips pretty freely to get rid of them. It was only surprising that they did not take what they wanted by force; but either the lack of courage and mutual understanding, or perhaps some