“It is a rich language,” said he, “but less prolific in rhymes than either the German or the English. That is why our best work has been done in blank verse, a form of composition which, though hardly known in your literature, is capable of reaching great heights. But I fear that such subjects are somewhat outside the range of a hussar.”
I was about to answer that if they were good enough for a guerilla, they could not be too much for the light cavalry, but he was already stooping over his half-finished verse. Presently he threw down the pen with an exclamation of satisfaction, and declaimed a few lines which drew a cry of approval from the three ruffians who held me. His broad face blushed like a young girl who receives her first compliment.
“The critics are in my favour, it appears,” said he; “we amuse ourselves in our long evenings by singing our own ballads, you understand. I have some little facility in that direction, and I do not at all despair of seeing some of my poor efforts in print before long, and with ‘Madrid’ upon the titlepage, too. But we must get back to business. May I ask what your name is?”
“Etienne Gerard.”
“Rank?”
“Colonel.”
“Corps?”
“The Third Hussars of Conflans.”
“You are young for a colonel.”
“My career has been an eventful one.”
“Tut, that makes it the sadder,” said he, with his bland smile.
I made no answer to that, but I tried to show him by my bearing that I was ready for the worst which could befall me.
“By the way, I rather fancy that we have had some of your corps here,” said he, turning over the pages of his big brown register. “We endeavour to keep a record of our operations. Here is a heading under June 24th. Have you not a young officer named Soubiron, a tall, slight youth with light hair?”
“Certainly.”
“I see that we buried him upon that date.”
“Poor lad!” I cried. “And how did he die?”
“We buried him.”
“But before you buried him?”
“You misunderstand me, Colonel. He was not dead before we buried him.”
“You buried him alive!”
For a moment I was too stunned to act. Then I hurled myself upon the man, as he sat with that placid smile of his upon his lips, and I would have torn his throat out had the three wretches not dragged me away from him. Again and again I made for him, panting and cursing, shaking off this man and that, straining and wrenching, but never quite free. At last, with my jacket torn nearly off my back and blood dripping from my wrists, I was hauled backwards in the bight of a rope and cords passed round my ankles and my arms.
“You sleek hound!” I cried. “If ever I have you at my sword’s point, I will teach you to maltreat one of my lads. You will find, you bloodthirsty beast, that my Emperor has long arms, and though you lie here like a rat in its hole, the time will come when he will tear you out of it, and you and your vermin will perish together.”
My faith, I have a rough side to my tongue, and there was not a hard word that I had learned in fourteen campaigns which I did not let fly at him, but he sat with the handle of his pen tapping against his forehead and his eyes squinting up at the roof as if he had conceived the idea of some new stanza. It was this occupation of his which showed me how I might get my point into him.
“You spawn!” said I; “you think that you are safe here, but your life may be as short as that of your absurd verses, and God knows that it could not be shorter than that.”
Ah, you should have seen him bound from his chair when I said the words. This vile monster, who dispensed death and torture as a grocer serves out his figs, had one raw nerve then which I could prod at pleasure. His face grew livid, and those little bourgeois side-whiskers quivered and thrilled with passion.
“Very good, Colonel. You have said enough,” he cried, in a choking voice. “You say that you have had a very distinguished career. I promise you also a very distinguished ending. Colonel Etienne Gerard of the Third Hussars shall have a death of his own.”
“And I only beg,” said I, “that you will not commemorate it in verse.” I had one or two little ironies to utter, but he cut me short by a furious gesture which caused my three guards to drag me from the cave.
Our interview, which I have told you as nearly as I can remember it, must have lasted some time, for it was quite dark when we came out, and the moon was shining very clearly in the heavens. The brigands had lighted a great fire of the dried branches of the fir trees; not, of course, for warmth, since the night was already very sultry, but to cook their evening meal. A huge copper pot hung over the blaze, and the rascals were lying all round in the yellow glare, so that the scene looked like one of those pictures which Junot stole out of Madrid. There are some soldiers who profess to care nothing for art and the like, but I have always been drawn towards it myself, in which respect I show my good taste and my breeding. I remember, for example, that when Lefebvre was selling the plunder after the fall of Danzig, I bought a very fine picture, called “Nymphs Surprised in a Wood,” and I carried it with me through two campaigns, until my charger had the misfortune to put his hoof through it.
I only tell you this, however, to show you that I was never a mere rough soldier like Rapp or Ney. As I lay in that brigand’s camp,
