had the effect of leaving for a few short moments the whole bank of
the Beresina deserted. The multitude were surging to the plain. If a
few men rushed to the river, it was less in the hope of reaching the
other bank, which to them was France, than to rush from the horrors of
Siberia. Despair proved an aegis to some bold hearts. One officer
sprang from ice-cake to ice-cake, and reached the opposite shore. A
soldier clambered miraculously over mounds of dead bodies and heaps of
ice. The multitude finally comprehended that the Russians would not
put to death a body of twenty thousand men, without arms, torpid,
stupid, unable to defend themselves; and each man awaited his fate
with horrible resignation. Then the major and the grenadier, the
general and his wife, remained almost alone on the river bank, a few
steps from the spot where the bridge had been. They stood there, with
dry eyes, silent, surrounded by heaps of dead. A few sound soldiers, a
few officers to whom the emergency had restored their natural energy,
were near them. This group consisted of some fifty men in all. The
major noticed at a distance of some two hundred yards the remains of
another bridge intended for carriages and destroyed the day before.

"Let us make a raft!" he cried.

He had hardly uttered the words before the whole group rushed to the
ruins, and began to pick up iron bolts, and screws, and pieces of wood
and ropes, whatever materials they could find that were suitable for
the construction of a raft. A score of soldiers and officers, who were
armed, formed a guard, commanded by the major, to protect the workers
against the desperate attacks which might be expected from the crowd,
if their scheme was discovered. The instinct of freedom, strong in all
prisoners, inspiring them to miraculous acts, can only be compared
with that which now drove to action these unfortunate Frenchmen.