"You almost make me feel warm! Your news has put me in a fever; I have
two friends to bring through. Ah! but for those marmots, I should have
been dead before now, old fellow. On their account I am taking care of
my horse instead of eating him. But have you a crust about you, for
pity's sake? It is thirty hours since I have stowed any victuals. I
have been fighting like a madman to keep up a little warmth in my body
and what courage I have left."

"Poor Philip! I have nothing--not a scrap!--But is your General in
there?"

"Don't attempt to go in. The barn is full of our wounded. Go up a bit
higher, and you will see a sort of pig-sty to the right--that is where
the General is. Good-bye, my dear fellow. If ever we meet again in a
quadrille in a ballroom in Paris--"

He did not finish the sentence, for the treachery of the northeast
wind that whistled about them froze Major Philip's lips, and the
aide-de-camp kept moving for fear of being frost-bitten. Silence soon
prevailed, scarcely broken by the groans of the wounded in the barn,
or the stifled sounds made by M. de Sucy's horse crunching on the
frozen bark with famished eagerness. Philip thrust his sabre into the
sheath, caught at the bridle of the precious animal that he had
managed to keep for so long, and drew her away from the miserable
fodder that she was bolting with apparent relish.

"Come along, Bichette! come along! It lies with you now, my beauty, to
save Stephanie's life. There, wait a little longer, and they will let
us lie down and die, no doubt;" and Philip, wrapped in a pelisse, to
which doubtless he owed his life and energies, began to run, stamping