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The rest of the moving multitude was composed of the servantry and the camp-followers. One bouche inutile bore a flag, a second carried a gun, and so forth, the only principle being to work as little as possible and to plunder all things plunderable. There were exceptions. I should want no better servant in these coast-countries and in exploring the far interior.
This feeling had begun in Salt Lake City, for there he had seen that the house of Israel was no longer unspotted of the world. Since the army with its camp-followers had come there was drunkenness and vice, the streets resounded with strange oaths, and the midnight murder was common.
From the first this throng, uniting with the usual horde of stragglers and camp-followers, prevented all rapid movements by the army; in fact, but for them the half-senile Kutusoff would not have been able to show even his van to the French line. Mortier's effort to destroy the Kremlin failed, and served no purpose except to exhibit the thirst for revenge of a savage nature brought to bay.
But the experienced Maurice too well knew the emptiness of such dreams. He had a splendid army eighteen thousand foot and five thousand horse of which Lewis William commanded the battalia, Vere the right, and Count Ernest the left, with a train of two thousand baggage wagons, and a considerable force of sutlers and camp-followers.
The wide plain, then bustling with all the life and animation of a large army, was now nearly deserted, some dismounted guns, some broken-up, dismantled batteries, around which a few sentinels seemed to loiter rather than to keep guard; a strong detachment of infantry could be seen wending their way towards the fortress, and a confused mass of camp-followers, sutlers, and peasants following their steps for protection against the pillagers and the still ruder assaults of their own Guerillas.
The best talkers usually address themselves to some particular society; there they are kings, elsewhere camp-followers, as a man may know Russian and yet be ignorant of Spanish; but this fellow had a frank, headlong power of style, and a broad, human choice of subject, that would have turned any circle in the world into a circle of hearers.
With these, too, came our four selves, a number of camp-followers and others, carrying on their shields those of the regiment who were too badly wounded to walk. Leaving the dead where they lay, we began to advance, pouring in volleys of arrows as we went. Twice the Abati tried to charge us, and twice those dreadful arrows drove them back.
These poor creatures paid dearly for their disobedience of general orders, which forbade any grass-cutter from going out alone; but, for the love of plunder, they will at all times risk their lives. It will appear scarcely credible to the general reader, when he is informed, that to every fighting-man in an Indian army, there are at least ten camp-followers.
A few officers, who had been dining with the various generals who had their headquarters there, or with friends on board ship, were the sole people in the streets, although from some of the closed windows of the drinking-shops in the Greek quarter came sounds of singing and noise, for every one was earning high wages, and the place was full of Maltese, Alexandrians, Smyrniotes, and, indeed, the riff-raff of all the Mediterranean cities, who had flocked to the scene of action to make money as petty traders, hucksters, camp-followers, mule-drivers, or commissariat-laborers.
Some one pitiful had indulged the fated man with the liquor he craved. Rivers took his place beside Peter as the guards at his side fell back. Soldiers off duty, many blacks and other camp-followers, gathered in silence as the little procession moved over the snow, noiseless except for the tramp of many feet and the rumble of the cart in which was an empty coffin.
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