They set out for the Russian lines, taking the direction of the batteries that had so cruelly raked the mass of miserable creatures huddled together by the river bank. A few minutes later the hoofs of two galloping horses rang on the frozen snow, and the awakened battery fired a volley that passed over the heads of the sleepers; the hoof-beats rattled so fast on the iron ground that they sounded like the hammering in a smithy. The generous aide-de-camp had fallen; the stalwart grenadier had come off safe and sound; and Philip himself received a bayonet thrust in the shoulder while defending his friend. Notwithstanding his wound, he clung to his horse’s mane, and gripped him with his knees so tightly that the animal was held as in a vise. “God be praised!” cried the major, when he saw his soldier still on the spot, and the carriage standing where he had left it. “If you do the right thing by me, sir, you will get me the cross for this. We have treated them to a sword dance to a pretty tune from the rifle, eh?” “We have done nothing yet! Let us put the horses in. Take hold of these cords.” “They are not long enough.” “All right, grenadier, just go and overhaul those fellows sleeping there; take their shawls, sheets, anything--” “I say! the rascal is dead,” cried the grenadier, as he plundered the first man who came to hand. “Why, they are all dead! how queer!” “All of them?” “Yes, every one. It looks as though the horseflesh _a la neige_ was indigestible.” Philip shuddered at the words. The night had grown twice as cold as before. “Great heaven! to lose her when I have saved her life a score of times already.” He shook the Countess, “Stephanie! Stephanie!” he cried. She opened her eyes. “We are saved, madame!” “Saved!” she echoed, and fell back again. The horses were harnessed after a fashion at last. The major held his sabre in his unwounded hand, took the reins in the other, saw to his pistols, and sprang on one of the horses, while the grenadier mounted the other. The old sentinel had been pushed into the carriage, and lay across the knees of the general and the Countess; his feet were frozen. Urged on by blows from the flat of the sabre, the horses dragged the carriage at a mad gallop down to the plain, where endless difficulties awaited them. Before long it became almost impossible to advance without crushing sleeping men, women, and even children at every step, all of whom declined to stir when the grenadier awakened them. In vain M. de Sucy looked for the track that the rearguard had cut through this dense crowd of human beings; there was no more sign of their passage than the wake of a ship in the sea. The horses could only move at a foot-pace, and were stopped most frequently by soldiers, who threatened to kill them. “Do you mean to get there?” asked the grenadier. “Yes, if it costs every drop of blood in my body! if it costs the whole world!” the major answered.