"Well, colonel, you are to have your way at last.Your bastion is to be stormed this afternoon previous to the general assault.Why, how is this? you don't seem enchanted?""I am not."
"Why, it was you who pressed for the assault.""At the right time, general, not the wrong.In five days Iundertake to blow that bastion into the air.To assault it now would be to waste our men."General Raimbaut thought this excess of caution a great piece of perversity in Achilles.They were alone, and he said a little peevishly,--"Is not this to blow hot and cold on the same thing?""No, general," was the calm reply."Not on the same thing.I blew hot upon timorous counsels; I blow cold on rash ones.General, last night Lieutenant Fleming and I were under that bastion; and all round it.""Ah! my prudent colonel, I thought we should not talk long without your coming out in your true light.If ever a man secretly enjoyed risking his life, it is you.""No, general," said Dujardin looking gloomily down; "I enjoy neither that nor anything else.Live or die, it is all one to me; but to the lives of my soldiers I am not indifferent, and never will be while I live.My apparent rashness of last night was pure prudence."Raimbaut's eye twinkled with suppressed irony."No doubt!" said he;"no doubt!"
The impassive colonel would not notice the other's irony; he went calmly on:--"I suspected something; I went to confute, or confirm that suspicion.I confirmed it."Rat! tat! tat! tat! tat! tat! tat! was heard a drum.Relieving guard in the mine.
Colonel Dujardin interrupted himself.
"That comes apropos," said he."I expect one proof more from that quarter.Sergeant, send me the sentinel they are relieving."Sergeant La Croix soon came back, as pompous as a hen with one chick, predominating with a grand military air over a droll figure that chattered with cold, and held its musket in hands clothed in great mittens.Dard.
La Croix marched him up as if he had been a file; halted him like a file, sang out to him as to a file, stentorian and unintelligible, after the manner of sergeants.
"Private No.4."
DARD.P-p-p-present!
LA CROIX.Advance to the word of command, and speak to the colonel.
The shivering figure became an upright statue directly, and carried one of his mittens to his forehead.Then, suddenly recognizing the rank of the gray-haired officer, he was morally shaken, but remained physically erect, and stammered,--"Colonel!--general!--colonel!"
"Don't be frightened, my lad.But look at the general and answer me.""Yes! general! colonel!" and he levelled his eye dead at the general, as he would a bayonet at a foe, being so commanded.
"Now answer in as few syllables as you can.""Yes! general--colonel."
"You have been on guard in the mine."
"Yes, general."
"What did you see there?"
"Nothing; it was night down there."
"What did you feel?"
"Cold! I--was--in--water--hugh!"
"Did you hear nothing, then?"
"Yes."
"What?"
"Bum! bum! bum!"
"Are you sure you did not hear particles of earth fall at the end of the trench?""I think it did, and this (touching his musket) sounded of its own accord.""Good! you have answered well; go."
"Sergeant, I did not miss a word," cried Dard, exulting.He thought he had passed a sort of military college examination.The sergeant was awe-struck and disgusted at his familiarity, speaking to him before the great: he pushed Private Dard hastily out of the presence, and bundled him into the trenches.
"Are you countermined, then?" asked General Raimbaut.
"I think not, general; but the whole bastion is.And we found it had been opened in the rear, and lately half a dozen broad roads cut through the masonry.""To let in re-enforcements?"
"Or to let the men run out in ease of an assault.I have seen from the first an able hand behind that part of the defences.If we assault the bastion, they will pick off as many of us as they can with their muskets then they will run for it, and fire a train, and blow it and us into the air.""Colonel, this is serious.Are you prepared to lay this statement before the commander-in-chief?""I am, and I do so through you, the general of my division.I even beg you to say, as from me, that the assault will be mere suicide--bloody and useless."
General Raimbaut went off to headquarters in some haste, a thorough convert to Colonel Dujardin's opinion.Meantime the colonel went slowly to his tent.At the mouth of it a corporal, who was also his body-servant, met him, saluted, and asked respectfully if there were any orders.
"A few minutes' repose, Francois, that is all.Do not let me be disturbed for an hour.""Attention!" cried Francois."Colonel wants to sleep."The tent was sentinelled, and Dujardin was alone with the past.
Then had the fools, that took (as fools will do) deep sorrow for sullenness, seen the fiery soldier droop, and his wan face fall into haggard lines, and his martial figure shrink, and heard his stout heart sigh! He took a letter from his bosom: it was almost worn to pieces.He had read it a thousand times, yet he read it again.Apart of the sweet sad words ran thus:--
"We must bow.We can never be happy together on earth; let us make Heaven our friend.This is still left us,--not to blush for our love; to do our duty, and to die.""How tender, but how firm," thought Camille."I might agitate, taunt, grieve her I love, but I could not shake her.No! God and the saints to my aid! they saved me from a crime I now shudder at.
