“Since you tell me all this, I will buy a copy, and take it with me to the camp. Pope Yefim would be pleased if he knew it. He has sometimes lamented to me that the unlearned cannot have the Scripture narratives in any tongue they are able to understand. There is the old Slavonic, of course, but you might almost as well try to read Babylonish.” “There is French--for _us_,” said Tolstoi; “and I own that it seems a better thing to me to read the sayings of Christ than the scoffs of Voltaire.” “Perhaps you are right,” Ivan answered thoughtfully. After a pause he added, “Since I have stood alone, like one on a rock in the midst of a raging sea, with death before me, death behind me, and death on each side of me, I have sometimes thought what strength it would give me if only I could look up and see a Face bent down on me from above, a Hand outstretched to help me.” The next day the Chevalier Guards began their march, and Ivan with them. Adrian also returned to his duty; and soon they were in the midst of one of the most memorable campaigns the world has ever seen. CHAPTER XX. WEARY, WANDERING FEET. “There shall be no more snow, No weary, wandering feet.” It was one of the early days of a genuine Russian winter. The vast and desolate plain between Moscow and Smolensko was white with snow; bitter winds thick with falling flakes were sweeping over it; and the wintry sun struggled in vain to pierce a dense frosty fog. A regiment of French infantry, weary, dispirited, and famishing with hunger, was toiling through the snow-drifts. Already the ranks were thinned terribly, while the ghastly faces and shrunken limbs of the survivors told the story of their sufferings. All the soldier’s pride in his appearance, in the brightness of his arms, in the trim perfection of his accoutrements, had vanished long ago; half the disorderly crowd had thrown away the muskets they were too weak to carry, nor was a dress to be seen that deserved the name of a uniform. Any warm garment found amongst the spoils of Moscow was made to do duty as an overcoat, without regard to the sex of its original wearer. Our old friend Seppel wore a lady’s fur-lined dressing-gown, whilst the practical Féron contented himself with a sheep-skin shuba which had once enveloped the ample form of a Russian coachman. But no fur was warm enough to keep the bitter cold of that wintry day from the weakened frames of men whose only food since leaving Moscow had been a few handfuls of rye soaked in water or a little horse-flesh. Clinging to the arm of Féron was a form slight and worn, and evidently ready to sink with fatigue. “Peste! Mind what you are about there!” cried Féron sharply, as Henri de Talmont stumbled and sank to his knees in a snow-drift a little deeper than usual. Then, pulling him up again by main force and setting him on his feet--“Can’t you see where you are going?” he asked.