Page:The Czar, A Tale of the Time of the First Napleon.djvu/215

Rh cast forth his ice like morsels, and who was able to abide his frost? Snow and vapour and stormy wind fulfilled his word. Of the six hundred thousand warriors who crossed the Niemen in the pride of their strength, only about forty thousand miserable fugitives—diseased, forlorn, and famished—straggled back again five months later.