Sebastian was coming up the steps.
CHAPTER XIV. MOSCOW.
Nothing is so disappointing as failure--except success.
While the Dantzigers with grave faces discussed the news of Borodino
beneath the trees in the Frauengasse, Charles Darragon, white with
dust, rose in his stirrups to catch the first sight of the domes and
cupolas of Moscow.
It was a sunny morning, and the gold on the churches gleamed and
glittered in the shimmering heat like fairyland. Charles had ridden
to the summit of a hill and sat for a moment, as others had done, in
silent contemplation. Moscow at last! All around him men were
shouting: "Moscow! Moscow!" Grave, white-haired generals waved
their shakos in the air. Those at the summit of the hill called the
others to come. Far down in the valley, where the dust raised by
thousands of feet hung in the air like a mist, a faint sound like
the roar of falling water could be heard. It was the word "Moscow!"
sweeping back to the rearmost ranks of these starving men who had
marched for two months beneath the glaring sun, parched with dust,
through a country that seemed to them a Sahara. Every house they
approached, they had found deserted. Every barn was empty. The
very crops ripening to harvest had been gathered in and burnt. Near
to the miserable farmhouses, a pile of ashes hardly cold marked
where the poor furniture had been tossed upon the fire kindled with
the year's harvest.
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