But in the night Jean dreamed a dream: he saw a child in glittering clothes and with a shining face who came into the dungeon and broke the bars.
The child said: “I am little St. Nicholas, the children’s friend, and I think you are tired, so I’m going to take you to a quiet place.”
Jean followed the child, who led him by the hand till they came to a nice inn, very high up on the top of huge mountains. There was a blazing log fire in the room, a clean warm bed, and the windows opened on a range of snowy mountains, bright as diamonds. And the stars twinkled in the sky like the candles of a Christmas tree.
“You can go to bed here,” said St. Nicholas, “nobody will disturb you, and when you do wake you will be quite happy and rested. Good-night, Jean.” And he went away.
The next day in the dawn, when the archers came to fetch Jean, they found he was fast asleep. They thought it was almost a pity to wake him, because he looked so happy and contented in his sleep; but when they tried they found it was impossible.
The village was called Moe-tung. It was on the edge of the big main road which leads from Liao-yang to Ta-shi-chiao. It consisted of a few baked mud-houses, a dilapidated temple, a wall, a clump of willows, and a pond. One of the houses I knew well; in its square open yard, in which the rude furniture of toil lay strewn about, I had halted more than once for my midday meal, when riding from Liao-yang to the South. I had been entertained there by the owner of the house, a brawny husbandman and his fat brown children, and they had given me eggs and Indian corn. Now it was empty; the house was deserted; the owner, his wife and his children, had all gone, to the city probably, to seek shelter. We occupied the house; and the Cossacks at once made a fire with the front door and any fragments of wood they could find. The house was converted into a stable and a kitchen, and the officers’ quarters were established in another smaller building across the road, on the edge of a great plain, which was bright green with the standing giant millet.
This smaller cottage had an uncultivated garden in front of it, and a kind of natural summer-house made by the twining of a pumpkin plant which spread its broad leaves over some stakes. We lay down to rest in this garden. About five miles to the north of us was the town of Liao-yang; to the east in the distance was a range of pale blue hills, and immediately in front of us to the south, and scarcely a mile off, was the big hill of Sho-shantze. It was five o’clock in the afternoon, and we had been on the move since two o’clock in the morning. The Cossacks brought us tea and pancakes, and presently news came from the town that the big battle would be fought the next day: the big battle; the real battle, which had been expected for so long and which had been constantly put off. There was a complete stillness everywhere. The officers unpacked their valises and their camp-beds. Every one arranged his bed and his goods in his chosen place, and it seemed as if we had merely begun once more to settle down for a further period of siesta in the long picnic which had been going on for the last two months. Nobody was convinced in spite of the authentic news which we had received, that the Japanese would attack the next day.