White Lies Part 63

"Nothing; it was night down there."

"What did you feel?"

"Cold! I--was--in--water--hugh!"

"Did you hear nothing, then?"

"Yes."

"What?"

"b.u.m! b.u.m! b.u.m!"

"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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sault. I have seen from the first an able hand behind that part of the defences. If we a.s.sault 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 a.s.sault will be mere suicide--b.l.o.o.d.y 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. A part 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! G.o.d and the saints to my aid! they saved me from a crime I now shudder at. And they have given me the good chaplain: he prays with me, he weeps for me. His prayers still my beating heart. Yes, poor suffering angel! I read your will in these tender, but bitter, words: you prefer duty to love. And one day you will forget me; not yet awhile, but it will be so. It wounds me when I think of it, but I must bow. Your will is sacred. I must rise to your level, not drag you to mine."

Then the soldier that had stood between two armies in a hail of bullets, and fired a master-shot, took a little book of offices in one hand,--the chaplain had given it him,--and fixed his eyes upon the pious words, and clung like a child to the pious words, and kissed his lost wife's letter, and tried hard to be like her he loved: patient, very patient, till the end should come.

"Qui vive?" cried the sentinel outside to a strange officer.

"France," was his reply. He then asked the sentinel, "Where is the colonel commanding the brigade?"

The sentinel lowered his voice, "Asleep, my officer," said he; for the new-comer carried two epaulets.

"Wake him," said the officer in a tone of a man used to command on a large scale.

Dujardin heard, and did not choose a stranger should think he was asleep in broad day. He came hastily out of the tent, therefore, with Josephine's letter in his hand, and, in the very act of conveying it to his bosom, found himself face to face with--her husband.

Did you ever see two duellists cross rapiers?

How unlike a theatrical duel! How smooth and quiet the bright blades are! they glide into contact. They are polished and slippery, yet they hold each other. So these two men's eyes met, and fastened: neither spoke: each searched the other's face keenly. Raynal's countenance, prepared as he was for this meeting, was like a stern statue's. The other's face flushed, and his heart raged and sickened at sight of the man, that, once his comrade and benefactor, was now possessor of the woman he loved. But the figures of both stood alike haughty, erect, and immovable, face to face.

Colonel Raynal saluted Colonel Dujardin ceremoniously. Colonel Dujardin returned the salute in the same style.

"You thought I was in Egypt," said Raynal with grim significance that caught Dujardin's attention, though he did not know quite how to interpret it.

He answered mechanically, "Yes, I did."

"I am sent here by General Bonaparte to take a command," explained Raynal.

"You are welcome. What command?"

"Yours."

"Mine?" cried Dujardin, his forehead flus.h.i.+ng with mortification and anger. "What, is it not enough that you take my"--He stopped then.

"Come, colonel," said the other calmly, "do not be unjust to an old comrade. I take your demi-brigade; but you are promoted to Raimbaut's brigade. The exchange is to be made to-morrow."

"Was it then to announce to me my promotion you came to my quarters?"

and Camille looked with a strange mixture of feelings at his old comrade.

"That was the first thing, being duty, you know."

"What? have you anything else to say to me, then?"

"I have."

"Is it important? for my own duties will soon demand me."

"It is so important that, command or no command, I should have come further than the Rhine to say it to you."

Let a man be as bold as a lion, a certain awe still waits upon doubt and mystery; and some of this vague awe crept over Camille Dujardin at Raynal's mysterious speech, and his grave, quiet, significant manner.

Had he discovered something, and what? For Josephine's sake, more than his own, Camille was on his guard directly.