"Let Léon go first and do you follow him," said I. "The child shall come with me."
And at that I stooped over my poor Bardot and perceived that he was indeed dead. The prospect of dying out there in the open was less horrible than that of being cooped up in this miserable house, which presently must become a furnace; and who could say what these wretches might do or not do when confronted by soldiers of the Guard? The resolution hardly was taken when we lifted the bolt and threw the great doors wide open. "En avant!" cries Léon, rushing out with his sword flashing. Then he laughed drolly. Not a moujik was to be seen; not a voice to be heard. A sound of approaching sleigh bells alone broke in upon the silence of the night.
Well, we all stood there to listen--our swords in our hands, our ears bent. A miracle had happened, and our enemies were fled. None of us, if it were not the child, understood the reality of the peril we had escaped, or surrendered to that revulsion of feeling natural to the circumstance. Little Joan, however, shed childish tears and was upon her knees giving thanks in an instant. The rest of us looked at her somewhat ashamed; our faith remained shaken. Beyond that, old Bardot was dead. I think we remembered the fact even when our own delivery tempted us to rejoice.
I have told you that the sound of twinkling sleigh-bells arrested our attention. Minute by minute they grew louder; we heard the thud of hoofs upon the snow, and presently we discerned a troop of horsemen approaching at a trot, and amidst them a sleigh of unusual size drawn by no fewer than four horses abreast. This unexpected company made straight for the house, and drew rein only at its door. Who they were, or what country, whether friend or enemies, the wan light forbade us to say. Their master evidently rode in the sleigh, and no sooner had it pulled up than he sprang out upon the snow and in a twinkling was doffing his hat to Valerie St. Antoine. Such a merry old gentleman I had not met in Russia. Verily he did not cease to smile from the moment his troop first surrounded us until that other moment, less pleasing, when we were trussed like fowls and thrust headlong into other sleighs which followed in his wake.