"May the pip seize your tongue, you
miscreant! I'll show you how much pity I have for you!" And, drawing a
pistol, Napoleonder shot the wounded soldier through the head. Then,
turning to his dead men, he said: "Did you see that?"
"We saw it," they replied; "and as long as it is so, we are your
faithful servants always."
Napoleonder rode on.
At last night comes; and Napoleonder is sitting alone in his golden
tent. His mind is troubled, and he can't understand what it is that
seems to be gnawing at his heart. For years he has been at war, and this
is the first time such a thing has happened. Never before has his soul
been so filled with unrest. And to-morrow morning he must begin another
battle--the last terrible fight with the Tsar Alexander the Blessed, on
the field of Borodino.
"Akh!" he thinks, "I'll show them to-morrow what a leader I am! I'll
lift the soldiers of the Tsar into the air on my lances and trample
their bodies under the feet of my horses. I'll make the Tsar himself a
prisoner, and I'll kill or scatter the whole Russian people.
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