Napoleonder rode on.

At last night comes; and Napoleonder is sitting alone in his golden
tent. His mind is troubled, and he can't understand what it is that
seems to be gnawing at his heart. For years he has been at war, and this
is the first time such a thing has happened. Never before has his soul
been so filled with unrest. And to-morrow morning he must begin another
battle--the last terrible fight with the Tsar Alexander the Blessed, on
the field of Borodino.

"Akh!" he thinks, "I'll show them to-morrow what a leader I am! I'll
lift the soldiers of the Tsar into the air on my lances and trample
their bodies under the feet of my horses. I'll make the Tsar himself a
prisoner, and I'll kill or scatter the whole Russian people."

But a voice seemed to whisper in his ear: "And why? Why?"

"I know that trick," he thought. "It's that same wounded soldier again.
All right. I won't give in to him. 'Why? Why?' As if I knew why!
Perhaps if I knew why I shouldn't make war."

He lay down on his bed; but hardly had he closed his eyes when he saw by
his bedside the wounded soldier--young, fair-faced, blond-haired, with
just the first faint shadow of a mustache. His forehead was pale, his
lips were livid, his blue eyes were dim, and in his left temple there
was a round black hole made by the bullet from his--Napoleonder's--pistol.
And the ghastly figure seemed to ask again, "Why did you kill me?"

Napoleonder turns over and over, from side to side, in his bed. He sees
that it's a bad business. He can't get rid of that soldier. And, more