The Great White Army Part 6

Within the tower the prince was now introducing my nephew to "Dr.

Guillotine."

All the resources of a barbarous masquerade were employed in this sorry entertainment.

The stage itself would have served for a miniature Theatre Francais.

Brawny Cossacks, clad like the _sansculottes_ of the Revolution, swarmed up on the mock scaffold and cried curses upon their prisoner.

The executioner was a huge Tartar with a monstrous black beard and a knife at his girdle. The knitting women of the Place de la Greve were not forgotten. A bevy of hags squatted about the platform and pointed their lean fingers at the miserable prisoner.

Had Leon a doubt hitherto as to the meaning of this foul business, it must have surrendered at the moment when he recognised one of his old troopers among the mock condemned, and perceived that the Russians meant to kill him.

Leaping to his feet, he cried an oath upon the outrage and commanded them to stop.

It was a vain outburst. Two of the prince's men had him by the arms at the first movement and pinned him to his chair, while his Highness derided his courage.

"Here is a French Guardsman who has a woman's heart," said he, his fellows shouting with ironic laughter at the sally. "We give him a little play, such as we have seen in Paris, and behold! he is ready to faint. A gla.s.s of wine, Michael, for the poor gentleman! Do you not see how ill he is?"

A goblet of wine was offered to and spurned by my nephew. He perceived that he was helpless and that the reputation of the Guards lay in his keeping. It remained to bear himself with what dignity he could, and turning to the prince, he exclaimed very coolly: "I apologise to your Highness, for it is not possible that you can be in earnest." And so he watched the drama to the end.

They had now dragged the struggling hussar to the plank of the guillotine and thrown and bound him there. Very deliberately they pushed him beneath the great knife, and then, all crying "Death to the French!" the blade fell and silenced for ever the shrieks of the unhappy wretch they had butchered.

Leon declares that from this moment Prince Nicholas was little better than a madman. His cries of "Bravo!" were such as the insane might have uttered. Clutching my nephew by the arm, he dragged him to the scaffold, saying:

"You do not know 'Dr. Guillotine'? Come and be introduced, then. Come and hear his music. You are a Frenchman and ignorant? Impossible, my friend, impossible."

So he raved, while all in the room took up the cry of "Impossible!" and began to shout and dance in their drunken frenzy like madmen.

Leon fought for his life then as he had never fought before in all wars our Emperor has waged. A strong man, he threw even the Cossacks from him, struck them senseless with any weapon that came to his hands, and was up and down like a cork upon a billow; but all useless, as you may well imagine.

When they got him to the scaffold he knew that his hour had come, and a great calm possessed him.

"I congratulate the Prince of the a.s.sa.s.sins," said he to his Highness.

"It is only in such a country as this that the butchers are enn.o.bled."

And with that he walked straight towards the executioner and held out his hands.

The man seized him as though he were a sheep. The prince himself began to raise the knife by the rope and to caress its gleaming edge. Surely Leon had but a moment to live. He thought as much, and a pa.s.sionate desire for life set him trembling. That he, so young, he whom so many loved, he to whom day was so fair a thing and the night but a witchery of woman's eyes--that he should perish here, butchered by the insane in an hour of their frenzy! G.o.d surely would not permit such a crime as that! Alas! he had forgotten how to pray these many years, and he but stood there, defying them as any one of his Majesty's Guards would have done.

"a.s.sa.s.sins!" he cried; and then, as a challenge: "There is not one of you that would dare to cross swords with me!"

They but laughed at him the more, and the prince now pulled the knife so high that all in the room could see it. He was still laughing; but some glimmer of reason had come to him, and that spirit of vengeance which animated him could no longer be denied.

"You murdered twenty thousand honest people with your guillotine in Paris," says he to Leon, as though a hussar of the year 1812 could be responsible for what was done in Paris twenty years before. "Now you must come here to burn the Holy City. Very well; we are going to teach you a lesson."

He turned to the executioner, and giving him the sign, the wretch threw Leon upon the plank.

It was then that Bardot, at the window, fired his pistol and struck the great bell high in the tower above. How much would I have given could I have been at his side at that moment. All that I heard were the loud shouts of surprise, the cries of one man to the other that this was an ambush, and, above all, the prince's screams when the great knife fell and severed his arm at the elbow as neatly as any surgeon could have done.

Such was the truth. At the moment of the alarm Prince Nicholas had loosed the rope, and, trying to catch it again, he stumbled forward and the great blade caught him by the elbow, and his hand and arm went rolling to the floor.

With a loud cry Leon now wrenched himself from his executioners. All were making for the gate of the tower, for they believed that the French were upon them, and no man thought of anything but his own safety.

VIII

Bardot and myself believed that the Cossacks were galloping to the place, and we lay in the shadow of the bridge, hardly daring to breathe lest the Russians in the house should discover us. When the latter came headlong out of the tower this alarm seemed unnecessary, for it was plain they were making for the forest.

"In five minutes," I said, "they will meet their fellows and all return again to the butchery."

I little knew that Valerie St. Antoine had found the droshky in the wood, and commanding the driver in the name of Prince Nicholas, had driven at full gallop to the barracks to bring help to her countrymen.

Such was the case, however, and the men who now rode to Ivan's Tower were of Leon's own troop; honest fellows who swore a bitter vengeance while they rode. They fell upon the Russians at the heart of the wood, and what they did there is best told at a bivouac. I went immediately to the tower and looked there for my nephew.

When I found him he lay senseless upon the scaffold, and at first I thought he was dead. The Guard, however, is obstinate in refusing to die, and when we had forced brandy between his lips and had bathed his forehead, he opened his eyes and asked where he was.

This I feared to tell him, but presently he sat up and looked about him.

"Ah!" he said, "I remember." And then he asked: "Where is Valerie St.

Antoine?"

"She should be in Moscow by this time," said I. "Why do you ask?"

"Because," said he, "I am still looking for her, mon oncle."

I shook my head. It seemed to me that the young woman in question had proved herself to be but the harbinger of ill. And yet I could see that my nephew's mind was made up, and that what he had done to-night he would do again if Valerie St. Antoine did but lift her pretty hand to beckon him.

CHAPTER III

THE TREASURE IN THE WOODS

I

It was on the 18th day of October in the year 1812 that we first heard of His Majesty's intention to abandon Moscow.

This came to us as a very great surprise.

It is true that we had had a terrible time in the city, which was now become a ruin, the convicts having burned down a great part of it; but we had learned to make the best of affairs and what with our plunder and our pleasures the time went merrily enough. I myself was perhaps the hardest-worked man in the regiment. So many people were burned by the fires in Moscow, so many were injured in the street brawls, that the hospitals were quite full, and I rarely knew a moment of leisure.

My nephew, Captain Leon, was situated very differently. There was hardly a day that he did not tell me of some new adventure with a woman, and when I would reproach him he reminded me that I had been young myself and should know the habits of a soldier better.

This was in Moscow after Valerie St. Antoine had done us so great a service upon a memorable night. Though Leon watched for her and offered five hundred francs to any man who would tell him of her whereabouts, he never saw her again while we were in the city, and when we did meet her this great army of ours was but a skeleton.

How little we foresaw the doom awaiting us when we quitted Moscow on that sunny October day!

Everything went as merry as a marriage bell then. We knew that we were returning to our own France and we cared not a scudo for the reason.

The Emperor, we said, had been too much for these wily Russians, and they had surrendered everything. The truth was far otherwise--it was the Russians who had been too clever for us, and burning down their beautiful city, had left us to a woeful fate. Of this I am now about to speak to you.