“Good-bye,” said the aide-de-camp, “I have scarcely time to get across that fatal river--and I MUST; I have a mother in France. What a night! These poor wretches prefer to lie here in the snow; half will allow themselves to perish in those flames rather than rise and move on. It is four o’clock, Philippe! In two hours the Russians will begin to move. I assure you you will again see the Beresina choked with corpses. Philippe! think of yourself! You have no horses, you cannot carry the countess in your arms. Come--come with me!” he said urgently, pulling de Sucy by the arm. “My friend! abandon Stephanie!” De Sucy seized the countess, made her stand upright, shook her with the roughness of a despairing man, and compelled her to wake up. She looked at him with fixed, dead eyes. “You must walk, Stephanie, or we shall all die here.” For all answer the countess tried to drop again upon the snow and sleep. The aide-de-camp seized a brand from the fire and waved it in her face. “We will save her in spite of herself!” cried Philippe, lifting the countess and placing her in the carriage. He returned to implore the help of his friend. Together they lifted the old general, without knowing whether he were dead or alive, and put him beside his wife. The major then rolled over the men who were sleeping on his blankets, which he tossed into the carriage, together with some roasted fragments of his mare. “What do you mean to do?” asked the aide-de-camp. “Drag them.” “You are crazy.” “True,” said Philippe, crossing his arms in despair. Suddenly, he was seized by a last despairing thought. “To you,” he said, grasping the sound arm of his orderly, “I confide her for one hour. Remember that you must die sooner than let any one approach her.” The major then snatched up the countess’s diamonds, held them in one hand, drew his sabre with the other, and began to strike with the flat of its blade such of the sleepers as he thought the most intrepid. He succeeded in awaking the colossal grenadier, and two other men whose rank it was impossible to tell. “We are done for!” he said. “I know it,” said the grenadier, “but I don’t care.” “Well, death for death, wouldn’t you rather sell your life for a pretty woman, and take your chances of seeing France?” “I’d rather sleep,” said a man, rolling over on the snow, “and if you trouble me again, I’ll stick my bayonet into your stomach.” “What is the business, my colonel?” said the grenadier. “That man is drunk; he’s a Parisian; he likes his ease.” “That is yours, my brave grenadier,” cried the major, offering him a string of diamonds, “if you will follow me and fight like a madman. The Russians are ten minutes’ march from here; they have horses; we are going up to their first battery for a pair.” “But the sentinels?” “One of us three--” he interrupted himself, and turned to the aide-de-camp. “You will come, Hippolyte, won’t you?” Hippolyte nodded.