Rasinski to tell the people in their own language that no harm should be done to them if they abandoned their useless and desperate opposition. Rasinski rode forward; but scarcely had he uttered the first word of peace, when his voice was drowned in a horrid yell, whilst the women furiously beat their breasts and tore their hair. Once more Rasinski called to them to yield. Thereupon a woman of colossal stature, whose loosened hair fell wildly on her shoulders, sprang upon a turret of the wall. Dog!' she cried,' with my teeth will I rend thee, like a hungry wolf her prey! Robber! thou shalt be torn like the hunter who despoils the shebear of her cubs! Curse upon ye, murderers of our sons and husbands! Curse upon ye, spoilers of our cities! A triple curse upon the godless crew, who defile our holy altars, and scoff the Almighty with a devil's tongue! Woe shall be your portion, worse your sufferings than those of the damned in the sulphur-pit! Curses, eternal curses upon ye all!'

"Rasinski shuddered. This menacing figure, although fearful to behold, excited not loathing. Wide robes of black and gray shrouded the person of the Pythoness; a blood-red cloth, half cap, half turban, was twined around her head. Her grizzled hair fluttered in the wind, her glittering eye rolled wildly in its orbit, whilst her open mouth poured forth curses, and her upraised hands appealed to heaven to fulfil them.

"Summoning all his strength, Rasinski once more shouted, in his lionlike voice

"Madmen! do you reject mercy?' "Another wild howl, accompanied with threatening gestures, drowned his words. By a sign he warned the King that all was in vain, and Murat gave orders to burst open the door. The artillery was already unlimbered, and three shots, whose thunder resounded fearfully in the empty city, crashed through the barrier, which broke and shivered at the shock. As it opened, a dense throng of the mad Russians streamed out, and dashed headlong into the French ranks. The invaders would fain have spared them, for they were too few to prompt a powerful foe to needless bloodshed;

but the fanatical patriotism of the unfortunates made mercy impossible. Like ferocious beasts, they threw themselves upon their foes, thinking only of destroying all they could. One raging madman, armed with a treebranch, fashioned into a huge club, struck down two Frenchmen, and with a few agile leaps was close to the King of Naples-as usual foremost in danger-when Rasinski sprang forward and cut at him with his sabre.. But the blow fell flat; with the fury of a goaded hound, the wounded man sprang upon the Count, dragged him with giant strength from his saddle, hurled him to the ground, and threw himself upon him. In a moment Bernard was off his horse, and, grappling the lunatic, who strove to throttle Rasinski, pulled him violently backwards. A French officer sprang to his assistance. With the greatest difficulty they unlocked the fierce grasp in which the Russian held Rasinski; and when this was done the wretch gnashed his teeth, and strove to use them on his prostrate opponent. But Rasinski had now an arm at liberty, and when his furious foe advanced his head to bite, he struck him with his clenched fist so severe a blow in the mouth, that a thick dark stream of blood gushed over his breast and face. Nevertheless, the barbarian yielded not, but made head against the three men with all the prodigious strength of his muscular body, until the bullet from the pistol of a dragoon, who coolly put the muzzle to his breast and shot him through the heart, laid him lifeless on the ground."

Convinced at last that the city is theirs without opposition, the French take up their quarters. Rasinski establishes himself with his friends in a spacious palace, full of corridors, staircases, and long suites of rooms, reminding us in some degree of one of Mrs Radcliffe's castles. Here some wellmanaged scenes occur. Voices and footsteps are heard, and Ludwig has a dream "that is not all a dream," in which Bianca appears to him, warning of danger, and bidding him fly. As token of her real presence, she leaves him a bracelet-the same by picking up which he first made her acquaintance and a letter, a mysterious sort of missive, like that by which

the gunpowder plot was discovered, in which she hints at danger underground. Rasinski, who has been disturbed by a dark figure passing through his room, at which he fires a pistol without effect, institutes a search through the palace. In the cellars they are met by a smell of sulphur, and presently the building shakes with the explosion of a mine. They hurry up to their apartments, and find them full of smoke. Just then the stillness of the night is broken by shouts of fire, and by sounds of drums and trumpets. Moscow is in flames.

And now begins, with the commencement of Mr Rellstab's third volume, the prodigious retreat from Moscow to Paris. It occupies six books out of the sixteen into which "1812" is divided; and however the interest of the other ten may occasionally be found drawn out and flagging, it must be admitted that these six are of intense and enthralling interest. From a rising ground near Moscow, Rasinski and his friends obtained a bird'seye view of the retreating multitude, just as, encumbered with spoil, exasperated by unwonted reverse and disappointment, their blood, impoverished by previous privations, now inflamed to fever by brief but furious excesses in the palaces and wine-cellars of the Russian nobles, they started upon their weary march.

"In three broad streams the enormous mass of men and baggage poured across the fields, issuing forth in inexhaustible numbers from the ruins of Moscow, whilst the head of the column disappeared in the blue and misty distance. And besides this main body, the plain to the right and left was covered with scattered horsemen and pedestrians.

"What is to become of it all?' said Rasinski, gazing down on the throng. 'How is an army to move with such baggage? Fortunately the first charge of Cossacks will rid us of at least half the encumbrance. What blind greediness has presided at the collection of the spoil! How many have laden themselves with useless burdens, under which they are destined to

sink!'

soon as

country.'

we get into the open

"Not he,' replied Rasinski. 'He will not deprive the soldier, who has plodded wearily over two-thirds of Europe, of the recompense of oft-promised booty. But my word for it, before this day is over, the fellows will of themselves begin to throw their ballast overboard. See yonder, those two men, they look like officer's servants. Have they not gone and harnessed themselves to a hand-cart, and now draw their load wearily after them! Not six hours will their strength endure; but blinded by avarice, they forget the eight hundred leagues that lie between this and Paris. And yonder lines of heavyladen carts, how long will their axles hold? And if one breaks, whence is it to be replaced? It is as much as the artillery can do to supply their deficiencies. The Emperor looks illpleased at all this encumbrance, but he leaves it to time to teach them the impossibility of their undertaking. There is a waggon down! do you see? one who will leave at half-a-league from Moscow all that he had probably reckoned upon conveying to Paris.'

་

"The cart which Rasinski saw upset was overloaded with plunder; an axle had broken, and it lay in the middle of the road, stopping the passage. There was an instant check in the whole column. From the rear came angry cries of Forward!' for all felt that the utmost exertion was necessary to make way through the throng and bustle. The very density of the crowd impeded movement, so that an accident diminishing the number of carts was a matter of self-gratulation to the others. As the broken vehicle could not immediately move on, and there was no room to turn it aside, the driver of one of the following carts called out to clear it away at any rate. Throw the lumber out of the road! every one for himself here! we cannot wait half the day for one man. Lend a hand, comrades; unharness the horses, and pitch the rubbish into the fields' Instantly, twenty, thirty, fifty arms were extended to obey the suggestion. In vain the owner of the cart stormed and swore, and strove to defend his property. In two minutes he was sur

rounded on all sides; and not only was the cart pillaged of all it contained, but the horses were unharnessed, the wheels taken off, and the body of the vehicle broken up and thrown aside; so that the road was once more clear. The howling fury of the plundered man was drowned in the scornful laughter of the bystanders; no one troubled his head about the matter, or dreamed of affording assistance to the despoiled individual, who might consider himself fortunate that his horses were left him.

"If this happens on the first day's march, at the gates of Moscow,' observed Rasinski, 'what is to be expected when an enemy threatens these heavy-laden masses? Yonder marauder has saved nothing but his pair of lean horses. The others may think themselves lucky if they save as much from the first feint-attack of half a hundred Cossacks! The fellow now howling and cursing is the luckiest of them all; for he is the first relieved from his useless drudgery. This very day he will have abundant opportunity to laugh and scoff in his turn, perhaps at his spoilers themselves. And before a week is over, he will bless his stars that he has been saved the profitless toil. The difference is merely that he loses to-day what others will lose to-morrow and the day after of all these thousands not one will ultimately profit by his booty.'

"The prognostications of the experienced soldier were speedily verified. The track of the French army was marked first by abandoned spoils, then by the bodies of the spoilers. Napoleon's soldiers were little accustomed to retreats, and seemed to imagine that, now they had condescended to commence one, the enemy would show his surprise and respect by abstaining from molesting them. Such at least is the only plausible way of explaining the infatuation that loaded with the most cumbersome plunder the multitude of men who, on the 16th September 1812, turned their backs upon the blazing turrets of Moscow. Nothing was too clumsy or heavy to be carried off; but ultimately nothing was found portable enough to be carried through the fatigues and dangers of the winter march. Baggage and superfluous munition-carts were soon

left behind, and the horses taken for the artillery; for which purpose, before reaching Smolensko, every second man in the cavalry was deprived of his charger. Although winter had not yet set in, there were frosts every night, and the slippery roads trebled the fatigues of the attenuated and illshod horses. After a short time, every means of transport, not monopolised by the guns, was required by the sick, wounded, and weary; and nobody thought of possessing more baggage than he could carry with him. And even the trophies selected in Moscow by Napoleon's order, to throw dust in the eyes of the Parisians,-splendid bronze ornaments from the palaces, outlandish cannon, (the spoils of Russia in her eastern wars,) and the cross of St Ivan, wrenched from the tower of the Kremlin,-were sunk in a lake by the roadside. Soon snow was the sole pillow, and horseflesh the best nourishment, of the broken and dispirited army.

At Smolensko, Ludwig and Bernard, when seeking in the storehouses of the depot a supply of shoes for the regiment, suddenly find themselves face to face with their old enemies, Beaucaire and the Baron de St Luces, who have them arrested as spies of Russia. Prevented from communicating with Rasinski, who is suddenly ordered off and compelled to march without them, they undergo a sort of mock examination in the gray of the morning, and are led out of the town to be shot. The place appointed for their execution is a snow-covered hillock, a few hundred yards from the walls, and close to the extremity of a thick pine wood. They are escorted by thirty men, and an escape appears impossible. Nevertheless Bernard, hopeful and energetic, despairs not of accomplishing it, and communicates his intentions to Ludwig.

"Seizing a favourable moment, Bernard suddenly knocked down the two foremost soldiers, sprang from amongst his guards, and shouting to Ludwig to follow, bounded like a roebuck towards the forest. He had cleared the way for Ludwig, who, prepared for the signal, availed himself of the opening, and sped across the snowy field. The soldiers stood astounded. 'Fire!' cried the officer; and a few

obeyed the order, but already several were in full pursuit of the fugitives, preventing the others from firing, lest they should shoot their comrades. Seeing this, all threw down their muskets and joined in the chase. Ludwig sought to keep near Bernard, in order not to sever his fate from that of his trusty friend. But the number of their pursuers soon forced them to take different directions. The hunted and the hunters were alike impeded by the snow, which had been blown off the steep side of the hillock, but lay in thick masses on the table-land, and at every step the feet sank deep. Already Ludwig saw the dusky foliage of the pines close before him, already he deemed himself to have escaped his unjust doom, when suddenly he sunk up to the hips, and, by his next movement, up to the breast in the snow, which

had drifted into a fissure in the earth. In vain he strained every muscle to extricate himself. In a few seconds his pursuers reached him, grappled him unmercifully, and pulled him out of the hole by his arms and hair.

"Ill treated by the soldiers, driven forward by blows from fists and musket butts, Ludwig was dragged, rather than he walked, to the place appointed for his death. Even the scornful gaze with which Beaucaire received him was insufficient to give him strength to enjoy in the last moments of his life an inward triumph over that contemptible wretch. But he looked anxiously around for Bernard, to see whether he again was the companion of his melancholy lot. He saw him not; he evidently was not yet captured. The hope that his friend had finally effected his escape, comforted Ludwig, although he felt that death, now he was alone to meet it, was harder to endure than when he was sustained by the companionship of the gallant Bernard.

"He was now again at the post, to which two soldiers secured him with musket-slings, his arms behind his back, as though they feared fresh resistance. The sergeant stepped up to him, a handkerchief in his hand.

"I will bandage your eyes, comrade,' said he, compassionately; it is better so.'

"In the first instance Ludwig would

have scorned the bandage, but now he let his kind-hearted fellow-soldier have his way. Suddenly it occurred to him that he might make the sergeant the bearer of his last earthly wishes.

"Comrade,' said he, as the man secured the cloth over his eyes,' you will not refuse me a last friendly service. So soon as you are able, go to Colonel Rasinski, who commands our regiment; tell him how I died, and beg him to console my sister. And if you outlive this war, and go to her in Warsaw or Dresden, and tell her that'

"He was interrupted by several musket-shots close at hand.

"Are those for me, already?' cried Ludwig,-for the sergeant had let go the handkerchief, now secured round his head, and had stepped aside. For sole reply Ludwig heard him exclaim -The devil! what is that?' and spring forward. At the same time arose a confused outcry and bustle, and again shots were fired just in the neighbourhood, one bullet whistling close to Ludwig's head. He heard horses in full gallop, whilst a mixture of words of command, shouts, clash of steel and reports of fire-arms resounded on all sides. Forward!' cried the voice of the sergeant. 'Close your ranks! fire!'

"A platoon fire from some twenty muskets rang in Ludwig's ear; he imagined the muzzles were pointed at him, and an involuntary tremor made his whole frame quiver. But he was still alive and uninjured. The complete darkness in which he found himself, the bonds that prevented his moving, the excitement and tension of his nerves, caused a host of strange wild ideas to fit across his brain. Hearing upon the left the stamp of hoofs and shouts of charging horsemen, he thought for a moment that Rasinski and his men had come to deliver him. Then, however, he heard the howling war-cry of the Russians. A

hurrah' rent the air. The contending masses rushed past him; the smoke of powder whirled in his face; cries, groans, and clatter of weapons were all around him. He was in the midst of the fight; in vain he strove to break his bonds, that he might tear the bandage from his eyes; he