Page:The Czar, A Tale of the Time of the First Napleon.djvu/218

208 gone forth: "Thus saith the Lord, Such as are for death, to death; such as are for the sword, to the sword; and such as are for the famine, to the famine; and such as are for the captivity, to the captivity."

We may, however, follow for a little way the fortunes of Rougeard. The bivouac fires he saw at a distance proved to be those of a Russian regiment of volunteers. He fell into the hands of the sentries, and in spite of a resistance as desperate as his exhausted condition permitted him to make, was secured, and brought at once to the colonel, a Russian nobleman named Demidoff. To his questions Rougeard replied with proud fearlessness; but he owned, upon being asked, that he was famishing with hunger. Demidoff, who perhaps had been reading the Book his sovereign loved so well, led the prisoner to his own tent, where an elegant and abundant dinner had just been served. "Sit down, my friend," he said to him, "eat and drink; you are welcome."

But the veteran did not obey. His brave, proud heart, which no peril of field or flood or wilderness had ever daunted, was melted, was crushed by the unexpected kindness. A great shudder passed over his frame. Trembling "as certainly he never would have trembled before the enemy," he said with uncontrollable emotion, "Can it be that a Russian, an officer, bids me sit down to eat and drink with him, after all the horrors we have committed in his country, and against his Emperor?"

But it could not be expected that all Russians would take their revenge after the manner of Demidoff. Many of the mujiks, who had been insulted and plundered, or had seen their relatives murdered by the French, put the prisoners that fell into their hands to a cruel death. Fortunately, reports of these outrages soon reached St. Petersburg, and a ukase was despatched immediately by the hand of a special courier, forbidding all such