almost daily enemy. One day it would be in the bazaars; the next in the poorest quarters of the city; again in the houses of the rich, which our troopers had pillaged. We were told the convicts fired the buildings by the governor's orders. We could not believe it, and yet we hunted the rascals down as though they were vermin.

I have often wondered what His Majesty the Emperor would have done had he known the true state of affairs in Moscow. He did not know them, however, and he was still anxious to propitiate those whom he believed to be its people. Every day we heard the story of the peace which was to be signed, and of the profit which was to come to our arms thereby; and every day we who served were abroad in street or alley wrestling with the flames and smoke of the burning houses, or hanging and shooting the incendiaries who had become the enemy.

Little wonder that my nephew Léon had no time for love-making. Often would I ask him if he had heard of or seen the beautiful Valerie again. The rascal pretended that he had forgotten her very existence, and yet I knew in my heart that he had remembered her. It was no surprise to me when, at the end of the third week, I heard from his servant, Gascogne, that he had received a letter from Valerie herself, and that it had contained an invitation to dinner in a house beyond the suburbs of the city. When I charged Léon with it he shook his head and smiled in his boyish way.

"Oh, mon oncle," he protested, "what time have I for anything like that?"

I rejoined that a man has always time for a pretty woman, and at that he laughed loudly.

"She asked me to dinner," says he, "but, of course, I shall not go. Why, my dear uncle, it would be very dangerous to do so. Do you not know that her friend is Prince Nicholas, who has sworn a vendetta against every Frenchman in Moscow? I should be a fool to do anything of the kind."

I agreed that he would be, and really I was not a little astonished at his common sense.

Captains of the Guard are rarely prudent where a pretty face is concerned, and Valerie St. Antoine was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen in all my life. It was amazing to me that Léon should have learned so much wisdom in so short a space of time, and I plumed myself upon his sagacity. Oh, how easily do we old fogeys deceive ourselves! Not three days had elapsed before I learned that he had written to the lady, and on the fourth I heard with some regret that he had gone to dine with her.

II

Now, I do not know why it was, but this affair had caused me much uneasiness from the beginning, and when I heard, upon the evening of September 28, that my nephew had left the palace and gone to dine with Valerie, a disquietude quite beyond ordinary attended the discovery.

Possibly Léon's own words had something to do with it. He had said that such an invitation might be a trap, and although the opinion was expressed as a joke, there remained a doubt in my own mind which no mere assurance could remove.

Remember the circumstances. We had discovered already that Valerie St. Antoine was the friend, and more than the friend, of a man who had sworn to exterminate the French in Moscow. The reality of the tie which bound them had been made apparent to me when I was with her in Prince Boris's house, and I could conceive no honest circumstance which would justify the invitation to my nephew Léon. When I questioned his servant, Gascogne, that good fellow seemed no less uneasy than I myself.

"There have been five officers from this regiment lost in Moscow this very week," said he. "I warned Captain Léon, but he would not listen to me. A woman. Faugh! It is the usual story, major. They all have a rendezvous, and none of them returns. Why did not the captain consult you? I told him that it was a trick, and he answered me by putting on his best uniform and calling a droshky. Major, we shall be lucky if we see him again."

I took no such view as this, and yet a certain foreboding of ill was not lightly to be put aside.

Léon had done as so many others in his regiment, and some of those had never returned to the palace. It might even be that the girl Valerie had not written the letter at all; and this latter thought was so disquieting that I sent Gascogne out to seek the driver of the droshky and to bring the fellow to the palace. When he came, a few sharp words soon had the truth from him.

"My good fellow," said I, "you will drive me immediately to the house to which you have just taken my nephew, Captain de Courcelles. If you play any trick upon me I will have you hanged at the gate of the Kremlin. Now, choose for yourself."

This was no idle threat, nor was it without its effect. The man fell into a frenzy of fear, while great drops of sweat stood upon his forehead, and he protested his innocence before God and the saints.

"Then let him put it to the proof," said I to the interpreter, "and bring his droshky here immediately."

Ten minutes later we were passing out of the western gate, and Sergeant Bardot, of the Fusiliers, was at my side. They called him "the antelope" in the regiment, and there was no nimbler fellow in all the Guards.

"Captain Léon has gone to meet a woman," said I. "It may be a trap, and, if so, we must get him out of it. I can count upon your discretion, sergeant?"

He answered that he was altogether at my service, and I could see that the prospect of an adventure pleased him greatly.

"They are devils, these Russians," said he, "and it is just as well that we should go. I trust we shall be in good time, major. The regiment could not afford to lose Captain Léon. There is no better officer in the Guards."

I agreed with that. There was no better officer in the Guards. If he were in any danger we must save him. So many had fallen in Moscow at a woman's nod that I ceased to ask myself what part curiosity played in this adventure.

Sufficient that Léon had gone to dine with Nicholas, the Russian, who had sworn a vendetta against every French officer in the city.

III

It was nine o'clock when we left the barracks, and half an hour later when the droshky rolled out upon the great north road to Petersburg.

So hot was it that hundreds of our fellows were sleeping in the open parks which abound on the border of the city, and their bivouac fires glowed beneath the pines and showed many a scene of tipsy revelry. With them were some of those women who cling to the skirts of an army as flies to a pasty, and these hussies capered about the fires in song and dance, while the sorriest music set them whooping like wild men at a fair. We paid little attention to them, but thought rather of the wide road ahead of us and of our unknown destination.

Now, this was a hazardous journey, as any man who was with me in Moscow will bear witness.

It is true that the city and surrounding country were wholly in our power; but we knew very well that bands of wild Cossacks ravaged the neighbourhood and were ready enough to butcher any Frenchman they could find. The road itself lay chiefly through pine woods, which afforded good harbourage to these brigands, and more than once I thought that I saw a horseman watching us as we went. When I mentioned as much to the sergeant he pooh-poohed it, as such a man would, declaring that our own patrols were in the district and would deal with such scum.

"We are not worth powder and shot," he said with a laugh, "and, in any case, we shall have the satisfaction of shooting the driver if anything happens to us."

This seemed to afford him some consolation. I noticed that he took out his pistol and primed it, as though very ready to begin if the miserable coachman afforded him any pretext. We, however, drove on without event, and when we had covered perhaps a couple of leagues the driver turned suddenly down a grassy path through the wood and presently declared that we had reached our