A few moments later, the gallop of two horses echoed over the snow, and the wakened artillery men poured out a volley which ranged above the heads of the sleeping men. The pace of the horses was so fleet that their steps resounded like the blows of a blacksmith on his anvil. The generous aide-de-camp was killed. The athletic grenadier was safe and sound. Philippe in defending Hippolyte had received a bayonet in his shoulder; but he clung to his horse's mane, and clasped him so tightly with his knees that the animal was held as in a vice.
"God be praised!" cried the major, finding his orderly untouched, and the carriage in its place.
"If you are just, my officer, you will get me the cross for this,"said the man. "We've played a fine game of guns and sabres here, I can tell you.""We have done nothing yet-- Harness the horses. Take these ropes.""They are not long enough."
"Grenadier, turn over those sleepers, and take their shawls and linen, to eke out.""Tiens! that's one dead," said the grenadier, stripping the first man he came to. "Bless me! what a joke, they are all dead!""All?"
"Yes, all; seems as if horse-meat must be indigestible if eaten with snow."The words made Philippe tremble. The cold was increasing.
"My God! to lose the woman I have saved a dozen times!"The major shook the countess.
"Stephanie! Stephanie!"
The young woman opened her eyes.
"Madame! we are saved."
"Saved!" she repeated, sinking down again.
The horses were harnessed as best they could. The major, holding his sabre in his well hand, with his pistols in his belt, gathered up the reins with the other hand and mounted one horse while the grenadier mounted the other. The orderly, whose feet were frozen, was thrown inside the carriage, across the general and the countess. Excited by pricks from a sabre, the horses drew the carriage rapidly, with a sort of fury, to the plain, where innumerable obstacles awaited it. It was impossible to force a way without danger of crushing the sleeping men, women, and even children, who refused to move when the grenadier awoke them. In vain did Monsieur de Sucy endeavor to find the swathe cut by the rear-guard through the mass of human beings; it was already obliterated, like the wake of a vessel through the sea. They could only creep along, being often stopped by soldiers who threatened to kill their horses.
"Do you want to reach the bridge?" said the grenadier.
"At the cost of my life--at the cost of the whole world!""Then forward, march! you can't make omelets without breaking eggs."And the grenadier of the guard urged the horses over men and bivouacs with bloody wheels and a double line of corpses on either side of them. We must do him the justice to say that he never spared his breath in shouting in stentorian tones,--"Look out there, carrion!"
"Poor wretches!" cried the major.
"Pooh! that or the cold, that or the cannon," said the grenadier, prodding the horses, and urging them on.
A catastrophe, which might well have happened to them much sooner, put a stop to their advance. The carriage was overturned.
"I expected it," cried the imperturbable grenadier. "Ho! ho! your man is dead.""Poor Laurent!" said the major.
"Laurent? Was he in the 5th chasseurs?"
"Yes."
"Then he was my cousin. Oh, well, this dog's life isn't happy enough to waste any joy in grieving for him."The carriage could not be raised; the horses were taken out with serious and, as it proved, irreparable loss of time. The shock of the overturn was so violent that the young countess, roused from her lethargy, threw off her coverings and rose.
"Philippe, where are we?" she cried in a gentle voice, looking about her.
"Only five hundred feet from the bridge. We are now going to cross the Beresina, Stephanie, and once across I will not torment you any more;you shall sleep; we shall be in safety, and can reach Wilna easily.--God grant that she may never know what her life has cost!" he thought.
"Philippe! you are wounded!"
"That is nothing."
Too late! the fatal hour had come. The Russian cannon sounded the reveille. Masters of Studzianka, they could sweep the plain, and by daylight the major could see two of their columns moving and forming on the heights. A cry of alarm arose from the multitude, who started to their feet in an instant. Every man now understood his danger instinctively, and the whole mass rushed to gain the bridge with the motion of a wave.
The Russians came down with the rapidity of a conflagration. Men, women, children, horses,--all rushed tumultuously to the bridge.
Fortunately the major, who was carrying the countess, was still some distance from it. General Eble had just set fire to the supports on the other bank. In spite of the warnings shouted to those who were rushing upon the bridge, not a soul went back. Not only did the bridge go down crowded with human beings, but the impetuosity of that flood of men toward the fatal bank was so furious that a mass of humanity poured itself violently into the river like an avalanche. Not a cry was heard; the only sound was like the dropping of monstrous stones into the water. Then the Beresina was a mass of floating corpses.
The retrograde movement of those who now fell back into the plain to escape the death before them was so violent, and their concussion against those who were advancing from the rear so terrible, that numbers were smothered or trampled to death. The Comte and Comtesse de Vandieres owed their lives to their carriage, behind which Philippe forced them, using it as a breastwork. As for the major and the grenadier, they found their safety in their strength. They killed to escape being killed.