Crawling through the snow they crept
up to the fence of dry branches which generally encloses a village in
that part of Lithuania. What they expected to get and in what manner,
and whether this expectation was worth the risk, goodness only knows.
However, these Cossack parties, in most cases wandering without an
officer, were known to guard themselves badly and often not at all. In
addition, the village lying at a great distance from the line of French
retreat, they could not suspect the presence of stragglers from the
Grand Army. The three officers had strayed away in a blizzard from the
main column and had been lost for days in the woods, which explains
sufficiently the terrible straits to which they were reduced. Their plan
was to try and attract the attention of the peasants in that one of the
huts which was nearest to the enclosure; but as they were preparing to
venture into the very jaws of the lion, so to speak, a dog (it is mighty
strange that there was but one), a creature quite as formidable under
the circumstances as a lion, began to bark on the other side of the
fence. . . .
At this stage of the narrative, which I heard many times (by request)
from the lips of Captain Nicholas B.
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