AS Paul and Trevisa emerged from the woodland and turned upon the highroad, there drew near a cloaked figure with steel scabbard clinking against spurs. "Marshal Zabern!" exclaimed the ex-secretary. "How? Are you not escorting the princess to Slavowitz?" "I have a little matter to despatch at the hostelry called 'Sobieski's Rest.' Her Highness has therefore condescended to relieve me from escort-duty." "Your way is our way, for at that inn we left our troika. Marshal Zabern," continued Trevisa, presenting Paul, "my friend--need I mention his name?--Captain Paul Woodville." "No man whose friendship I desire more," said Zabern, raising his plumed helmet. He had taken a liking for Paul,--the liking of a brave soldier for a compeer. "I have always esteemed Englishmen," continued Zabern, "since the day I ran from them at Waterloo." "You have fought under the great Napoleon, then?" said Paul. "For a brief space. As a lad of eighteen I took part in the Moscow campaign. When Napoleon sounded the tocsin of war against Russia, who joined him with more enthusiasm than the Poles, eager to avenge their country's wrongs? Did not his emissary, the Abbé de Pradt, promise at Warsaw that his imperial master had determined to expel the Muscovites from Europe, and to replace them with Poles? Trusting to these words, sixty thousand of us marched with the Grand Army upon Moscow. Heavens! shall I ever forget the fierce thrill of joy that pervaded our ranks as we drew rein and gazed upon the golden spires and domes of the city of the Great Enemy, flashing on the far-off horizon. Yes," continued Zabern, his eye kindling at the recollection, "yes, we took their holy city, so-called, and planted the Polish eagles upon the ramparts of the Kremlin, as our fathers had done before us in the glorious days of old." "And it has been the dream of the marshal's life," smiled Trevisa, "to renew that experience." "That experience, but not _this_!" And here the speaker pushed back the sleeve of his right arm, and Paul perceived what he had not noticed before, namely, that Zabern was minus a hand. "You know the sequel," continued the marshal. "We were compelled to retire, defeated not by superiority in valor, but by famine and the rigor of a Russian winter. And, my God! what a winter that was!" continued Zabern, shivering as if he still felt the effects of the cold. "The frost was so intense that it penetrated flesh, sinew, and bone, rendering the limbs as white and brittle as alabaster. In repelling an attack of Cossacks I aimed a sabre-stroke at a fellow's head, feeling in the next moment a curious sensation at the wrist; and there, lying before me upon the snow, and still grasping the sabre-hilt, was my own hand. It had dropped off at the joint, as you see." "Good God!" cried Trevisa.