He ordered an examination to be made in order to determine what had best be done. The report stated that seven or eight were so dangerously ill that they could not live more than twenty-four hours longer, and that, furthermore, plague-stricken as they were, they would spread the disease among all the soldiers who came in contact with them. Several asked for instant death. He thought that it would be an act of charity to advance their death by a few hours.
Do you still doubt? Napoleon shall speak for himself in the first person.
Where is the man who would not have preferred a speedy death to the horror of living exposed to the tortures of these barbarians? If my son—and I think I love him as dearly as a child can be loved—were in a situation similar to that of those unfortunates, my opinion would be in favor of doing the same thing to him; and were I in the same position I should demand that it be done to me.
It seems that nothing could be clearer than those few lines. How does it happen that M. Thiers did not read them? And if he did read them, why did he deny a fact which was confessed by the man who would have the most interest in concealing it?
Thus we establish the truth, not for the purpose of attacking Bonaparte, who could not have acted otherwise, but to prove to the partisans of pure history that it is not always true history.
The little army followed the same route in returning from Cairo that it had on coming to Syria. But the heat grew more terrible each day. When they left Gaza it registered 35 degrees Centigrade, and if the mercury was placed in the sand it rose to 45 degrees. Bonaparte noticed two men filling a grave a short time before they reached El-Arich. He thought he recognized in them the two men to whom he had spoken a fortnight before. And when he questioned them they said that they were indeed the men who had carried Croisier's litter. The poor fellow had just died of tetanus.
"Did you bury his sabre with him?" asked Bonaparte.
"Yes," replied both men together.
He stayed until the grave was filled up. Then fearing that it might be violated, he said: "I want a volunteer to stay here as a sentinel until the army has passed."
"Here," said a voice.