“Improvise,” said the general.  “Improvise in French, for the sake of our guest.”

“Oh, yes,” cried Boris; “improvise as you did the other evening.”

He immediately struck a minor chord.

Natacha looked fondly at her father as she sang: 

  “When the moment comes that parts us at the close of day,
  when the Angel of Sleep covers you with azure wings;
  “Oh, may your eyes rest from so many tears, and your oppressed
        heart have calm;
  “In each moment that we have together, Father dear, let our
        souls feel harmony sweet and mystical;
  “And when your thoughts may have flown to other worlds, oh, may
        my image, at least, nestle within your sleeping eyes.”

Natacha’s voice was sweet, and the charm of it subtly pervasive.  The words as she uttered them seemed to have all the quality of a prayer and there were tears in all eyes, excepting those of Michael Korsakoff, the second orderly, whom Rouletabille appraised as a man with a rough heart not much open to sentiment.

“Feodor Feodorovitch,” said this officer, when the young girl’s voice had faded away into the blending with the last note of the guzla, “Feodor Feodorovitch is a man and a glorious soldier who is able to sleep in peace, because he has labored for his country and for his Czar.”

“Yes, yes.  Labored well!  A glorious soldier!” repeated Athanase Georgevitch and Ivan Petrovitch.  “Well may he sleep peacefully.”

“Natacha sang like an angel,” said Boris, the first orderly, in a tremulous voice.

“Like an angel, Boris Nikolaievitch.  But why did she speak of his heart oppressed?  I don’t see that General Trebassof has a heart oppressed, for my part.”  Michael Korsakoff spoke roughly as he drained his glass.

“No, that’s so, isn’t it?” agreed the others.

“A young girl may wish her father a pleasant sleep, surely!” said Matrena Petrovna, with a certain good sense.  “Natacha has affected us all, has she not, Feodor?”

“Yes, she made me weep,” declared the general.  “But let us have champagne to cheer us up.  Our young friend here will think we are chicken-hearted.”

“Never think that,” said Rouletabille.  “Mademoiselle has touched me deeply as well.  She is an artist, really a great artist.  And a poet.”

“He is from Paris; he knows,” said the others.

And all drank.

Then they talked about music, with great display of knowledge concerning things operatic.  First one, then another went to the piano and ran through some motif that the rest hummed a little first, then shouted in a rousing chorus.  Then they drank more, amid a perfect fracas of talk and laughter.  Ivan Petrovitch and Athanase Georgevitch walked across and kissed the general.  Rouletabille saw all around him great children who amused themselves with unbelievable naivete and who drank in a fashion more