There was something even comical in the position of
the men in possession of the raft. Though they
were uttering awful groans and imprecations, they
dared not resist the grenadier, for in truth they
were so closely packed together, that a push to one
man might send half of them overboard. This danger
was so pressing that a cavalry captain endeavored
to get rid of the grenadier; but the latter, seeing
the hostile movement of the officer, seized him round
the waist and flung him into the water, crying out,—
“Ha! ha! my duck, do you want to drink?
Well, then, drink!— Here are two places,”
he cried. “Come, major, toss me the little
woman and follow yourself. Leave that old fossil,
who’ll be dead by to-morrow.”
“Make haste!” cried the voice of all,
as one man.
“Come, major, they are grumbling, and they have
a right to do so.”
The Comte de Vandieres threw off his wrappings and
showed himself in his general’s uniform.
“Let us save the count,” said Philippe.
Stephanie pressed his hand, and throwing herself on
his breast, she clasped him tightly.
“Adieu!” she said.
They had understood each other.
The Comte de Vandieres recovered sufficient strength
and presence of mind to spring upon the raft, whither
Stephanie followed him, after turning a last look
to Philippe.
“Major! will you take my place? I don’t
care a fig for life,” cried the grenadier.
“I’ve neither wife nor child nor mother.”
“I confide them to your care,” said the
major, pointing to the count and his wife.
“Then be easy; I’ll care for them, as
though they were my very eyes.”
The raft was now sent off with so much violence toward
the opposite side of the river, that as it touched
ground, the shock was felt by all. The count,
who was at the edge of it, lost his balance and fell
into the river; as he fell, a cake of sharp ice caught
him, and cut off his head, flinging it to a great
distance.
“See there! major!” cried the grenadier.
“Adieu!” said a woman’s voice.
Philippe de Sucy fell to the ground, overcome with
horror and fatigue.
Thecure
“My poor niece became insane,” continued
the physician, after a few moment’s silence.
“Ah! monsieur,” he said, seizing the marquis’s
hand, “life has been awful indeed for that poor
little woman, so young, so delicate! After being,
by dreadful fatality, separated from the grenadier,
whose name was Fleuriot, she was dragged about for
two years at the heels of the army, the plaything
of a crowd of wretches. She was often, they tell
me, barefooted, and scarcely clothed; for months together,
she had no care, no food but what she could pick up;
sometimes kept in hospitals, sometimes driven away
like an animal, God alone knows the horrors that poor
unfortunate creature has survived. She was locked
