Is we rode in hot haste. One of the savages was about to run me through
with a lance, when Renard, catching a sight of his manoeuvre, thrust his
horse between us to turn aside the blow; his poor brute--a fine animal
it was, upon my word--received the lance thrust and fell, bringing down
both Renard and the Cossack with him. I killed the Cossack, seized
Renard by the arm, and laid him crosswise before me on my horse like a
sack of wheat. "'Good-bye, captain,' Renard said; 'it is all over with
me.' "'Not yet,' I answered; 'I must have a look at you.' We had reached
the town by that time; I dismounted, and propped him up on a little
straw by the corner of the house. A wound in the head had laid open the
brain, and yet he spoke! . . . Oh! he was a brave man. "'We are quits,'
he said. 'I have given you my life, and I had taken Judith from you.
Take care of her and of her child, if she has one. And not only so--you
must marry her.' "I left him then and there sir, like a dog; when the
first fury of anger left me, and I went back again--he was dead. The
Cossacks had set fire to the town, and the thought of Judith then came
to my mind. I went in search of her, took her up behind me in the
saddle, and, thanks to my swift horse, caught up the regiment which was
effecting its retreat. As for the Jew and his family, there was not one
of them left, they had all disappeared like rats; there was no one but
Judith in the house, waiting alone there for Renard. At first, as you
can understand, I told her not a word of all that had happened. "So it
befell that all through the disastrous campaign of 1813 I had a woman to
look after, to find quarters for her, and to see that she was
comfortable. She scarcely knew, I think, the straits to which we were
reduced. I was always careful to keep her ten leagues ahead of us as we
drew back towards France. Her boy was born while we were fighting at
Hanau. I was wounded in the engagement, and only rejoined Judith at
Strasburg; then I returned to Paris, for, unluckily, I was laid up all
through the campaign in France. If it had not been for that wretched
mishap, I should have entered the Grenadier Guards, and then the Emperor
would have promoted me. As it was, sir, I had three broken ribs
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