At the end of the terrace, he sat on the parapet and jumped down on the embankment running along the river. Pitou did the same.
[CHAPTER IX.]
"TO THE BASTILE!"
Once on the river edge, the two countrymen, spying arms glitter on the Tuileries Bridge, in all probability, not in friendly hands, lay down in the grass beneath the trees, and held a council.
The question was, as laid down by the elder, whether they ought to stay where they were, in comparative safety, or return into the action. He waited for Pitou's opinion.
Pitou had grown in the farmer's estimation, from the learning he had shown down in the country and the bravery he showed this evening. Pitou instinctively felt this, but he was naturally so humble that he was only the more grateful to his friend.
"Master," he said, "it is clear that you are braver and I less of a coward than was supposed by ourselves. Horace the poet, a very different character from you, flung down his weapons and took to his heels at the first conflict he was in. This proves that I am more courageous than Horace, with my musket, cartridge-box and sword to show for it. My conclusion is that the bravest man in the world may be killed by a bullet. Ergo, as your design in quitting the farm was to come to Paris on an important errand——"
"By all that is blue, the casket!"
"You have hit it; and for nothing else."