“I will follow your Excellency,” said I. “There is a small engagement which detains me.”
He opened his eyes.
“At this hour?”
“Yes, sir,” I answered. “My fellow-officers, whom I never saw until last night, will not be content unless they catch another glimpse of me the first thing this morning.”
“Au revoir, then,” said Marshal Lannes, as he passed upon his way.
I hurried through the shattered door of the convent.
When I reached the roofless house in which we had held the consultation the night before, I threw off my gown and I put on the busby and sabre which I had left there.
Then, a Hussar once more, I hurried onward to the grove which was our rendezvous. My brain was still reeling from the concussion of the powder, and I was exhausted by the many emotions which had shaken me during that terrible night. It is like a dream, all that walk in the first dim grey light of dawn, with the smouldering camp-fires around me and the buzz of the waking army. Bugles and drums in every direction were mustering the infantry, for the explosion and the shouting had told their own tale. I strode onward until, as I entered the little clump of cork oaks behind the horse lines, I saw my twelve comrades waiting in a group, their sabres at their sides. They looked at me curiously as I approached. Perhaps with my powder-blackened face and my blood-stained hands I seemed a different Gerard to the young captain whom they had made game of the night before.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” said I. “I regret exceedingly if I have kept you waiting, but I have not been master of my own time.”
They said nothing, but they still scanned me with curious eyes. I can see them now, standing in a line before me, tall men and short men, stout men and thin men: Olivier, with his warlike moustache; the thin, eager face of Pelletan; young Oudin, flushed by his first duel; Mortier, with the sword-cut across his wrinkled brow.