carriages,—­everything!  Drive that mass of men to the bridge.  Compel all that has two legs to get to the other side of the river.  The burning of everything—­everything—­is now our last resource.  If Berthier had let me destroy those damned camp equipages, this river would swallow only my poor pontoniers, those fifty heroes who will save the army, but who themselves will be forgotten.”

The general laid his hand on his forehead and was silent.  He felt that Poland would be his grave, and that no voice would rise to do justice to those noble men who stood in the water, the icy water of Beresina, to destroy the buttresses of the bridges.  One alone of those heroes still lives—­or, to speak more correctly, suffers—­in a village, totally ignored.

The aide-de-camp started.  Hardly had this generous officer gone a hundred yards towards Studzianka than General Eble wakened a number of his weary pontoniers, and began the work,—­the charitable work of burning the bivouacs set up about the bridge, and forcing the sleepers, thus dislodged, to cross the river.

Meanwhile the young aide-de-camp reached, not without difficulty, the only wooden house still left standing in Studzianka.

“This barrack seems pretty full, comrade,” he said to a man whom he saw by the doorway.

“If you can get in you’ll be a clever trooper,” replied the officer, without turning his head or ceasing to slice off with his sabre the bark of the logs of which the house was built.

“Is that you, Philippe?” said the aide-de-camp, recognizing a friend by the tones of his voice.

“Yes.  Ha, ha! is it you, old fellow?” replied Monsieur de Sucy, looking at the aide-de-camp, who, like himself, was only twenty-three years of age.  “I thought you were the other side of that cursed river.  What are you here for?  Have you brought cakes and wine for our dessert?  You’ll be welcome,” and he went on slicing off the bark, which he gave as a sort of provender to his horse.

“I am looking for your commander to tell him, from General Eble, to make for Zembin.  You’ll have barely enough time to get through that crowd of men below.  I am going presently to set fire to their camp and force them to march.”

“You warm me up—­almost!  That news makes me perspire.  I have two friends I must save.  Ah! without those two to cling to me, I should be dead already.  It is for them that I feed my horse and don’t eat myself.  Have you any food,—­a mere crust?  It is thirty hours since anything has gone into my stomach, and yet I have fought like a madman —­just to keep a little warmth and courage in me.”

“Poor Philippe, I have nothing—­nothing!  But where’s your general,—­in this house?”

“No, don’t go there; the place is full of wounded.  Go up the street; you’ll find on your left a sort of pig-pen; the general is there.  Good-bye, old fellow.  If we ever dance a trenis on a Paris floor—­”