The Companions of Jehu. Dumas Alexandre
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devoted the influence which his genius gives him over France as Monk did – that is to say, to reinstate his legitimate sovereign upon the throne.”
“Ah!” cried Roland, with a smile, “that is asking too much of a republican general.”
“Then I maintain what I said,” replied the young noble. “Fire! monsieur, fire!” Then as Roland made no haste to obey this injunction, he shouted, stamping his foot: “Heavens and earth! will you fire?”
At these words Roland made a movement as if he intended to fire in the air.
“Ah!” exclaimed M. de Barjols. Then with a rapidity of gesture and speech that prevented this, “Do not fire in the air, I beg, or I shall insist that we begin again and that you fire first.”
“On my honor!” cried Roland, turning as pale as if the blood had left his body, “this is the first time I have done so much for any man. Go to the devil! and if you don’t want to live, then die!”
At the same time he lowered his arm and fired, without troubling to take aim.
Alfred de Barjols put his hand to his breast, swayed back and forth, turned around and fell face down upon the ground. Roland’s bullet had gone through his heart.
Sir John, seeing M. de Barjols fall, went straight to Roland and drew him to the spot where he had thrown his hat and coat.
“That is the third,” murmured Roland with a sigh; “but you are my witness that this one would have it.”
Then giving his smoking pistol to Sir John, he resumed his hat and coat. During this time M. de Valensolle picked up the pistol which had escaped from his friend’s hand, and brought it, together with the box, to Sir John.
“Well?” asked the Englishman, motioning toward Alfred de Barjols with his eyes.
“He is dead,” replied the second.
“Have I acted as a man of honor, sir?” asked Roland, wiping away the sweat which suddenly inundated his brow at the announcement of his opponent’s death.
“Yes, monsieur,” replied M. de Valensolle; “only, permit me to say this: you possess the fatal hand.”
Then bowing to Roland and his second with exquisite politeness, he returned to his friend’s body.
“And you, my lord,” resumed Roland, “what do you say?”
“I say,” replied Sir John, with a sort of forced admiration, “you are one of those men who are made by the divine Shakespeare to say of themselves:
“‘Danger and I —
We were two lions littered in one day,
But I the elder.’”
CHAPTER V. ROLAND
The return was silent and mournful; it seemed that with the hopes of death Roland’s gayety had disappeared.
The catastrophe of which he had been the author played perhaps a part in his taciturnity. But let us hasten to say that in battle, and more especially during the last campaign against the Arabs, Roland had been too frequently obliged to jump his horse over the bodies of his victims to be so deeply impressed by the death of an unknown man.
His sadness was, due to some other cause; probably that which he confided to Sir John. Disappointment over his own lost chance of death, rather than that other’s decease, occasioned this regret.
On their return to the Hotel du Palais-Royal, Sir John mounted to his room with his pistols, the sight of which might have excited something like remorse in Roland’s breast. Then he rejoined the young officer and returned the three letters which had been intrusted to him.
He found Roland leaning pensively on a table. Without saying a word the Englishman laid the three letters before him. The young man cast his eyes over the addresses, took the one destined for his mother, unsealed it and read it over. As he read, great tears rolled down his cheeks. Sir John gazed wonderingly at this new phase of Roland’s character. He had thought everything possible to this many-sided nature except those tears which fell silently from his eyes.
Shaking his head and paying not the least attention to Sir John’s presence, Roland murmured:
“Poor mother! she would have wept. Perhaps it is better so. Mothers were not made to weep for their children!”
He tore up the letters he had written to his mother, his sister, and General Bonaparte, mechanically burning the fragments with the utmost care. Then ringing for the chambermaid, he asked:
“When must my letters be in the post?”
“Half-past six,” replied she. “You have only a few minutes more.”
“Just wait then.”
And taking a pen he wrote:
My DEAR GENERAL – It is as I told you; I am living and he is dead. You must admit that this seems like a wager. Devotion to death.
Your Paladin
ROLAND.
Then he sealed the letter, addressed it to General Bonaparte, Rue de la Victoire, Paris, and handed it to the chambermaid, bidding her lose no time in posting it. Then only did he seem to notice Sir John, and held out his hand to him.
“You have just rendered me a great service, my lord,” he said. “One of those services which bind men for all eternity. I am already your friend; will you do me the honor to become mine?”
Sir John pressed the hand that Roland offered him.
“Oh!” said he, “I thank you heartily. I should never have dared ask this honor; but you offer it and I accept.”
Even the impassible Englishman felt his heart soften as he brushed away the tear that trembled on his lashes. Then looking at Roland, he said: “It is unfortunate that you are so hurried; I should have been pleased and delighted to spend a day or two with you.”
“Where were you going, my lord, when I met you?”
“Oh, I? Nowhere. I am travelling to get over being bored. I am unfortunately often bored.”
“So that you were going nowhere?”
“I was going everywhere.”
“That is exactly the same thing,” said the young officer, smiling. “Well, will you do something for me?”
“Oh! very willingly, if it is possible.”
“Perfectly possible; it depends only on you.”
“What is it?”
“Had I been killed you were going to take me to my mother or throw me into the Rhone.”
“I should have taken you to your mother and not thrown you into the Rhone.”
“Well, instead of accompanying me dead, take me living. You will be all the better received.”
“Oh!”
“We will remain a fortnight at Bourg. It is my natal city, and one of the dullest towns in France; but as your compatriots are pre-eminent for originality, perhaps you will find amusement where others are bored. Are we agreed?”
“I should like nothing better,” exclaimed the Englishman; “but it seems to me that it is hardly proper on my part.”
“Oh! we are not in England, my lord, where etiquette holds absolute sway. We have no longer king nor queen. We didn’t cut off that poor creature’s head whom they called Marie Antoinette to install Her Majesty, Etiquette, in her stead.”
“I should like to go,” said Sir John.
“You’ll see, my mother is an excellent woman, and very distinguished besides. My sister was sixteen when I left; she must be eighteen now. She was pretty, and she ought to be beautiful. Then there is my brother Edouard, a delightful youngster of twelve, who will let off fireworks between your legs and chatter a gibberish of English with you. At the end of the fortnight we will go to Paris together.”
“I