The soldier saluted again, wheeled, and retreated. De Sainte Croix bent over the fallen man.
“How is it, Lebrun?”
The corporal lay with a ghastly face, his breath labouring, his chest lifting in spasms. He was not a young man, yet prematurely aged, toughened, grizzled, tanned like old leather in the service of his god. There was a wild, lost look in his eyes which betokened the coming end. He struggled to speak.
“Lift me up, monsieur, in God’s name!”
De Sainte Croix took the livid head on his knee. The posture somewhat eased the fighting heart.
“Courage, comrade! This fit will pass with the oppression. Why, I myself feel it—I. When the storm breaks——”
The blue lips caught at the word.
“When the storm breaks! What will he have answered?”
“He? Who?” said the young officer.
The dying corporal, twisting in his arms, made an awful gesture towards the Emperor’s tent.