“As always,” said de Sainte Croix, “with the cry to victory.”
The other clutched his hand with a grip like madness.
“I believe it, monsieur. He will have renewed the compact.”
“What compact, my poor friend?”
“With the red man.”
De Sainte Croix could hardly catch the answer.
He laughed—men must laugh, though they died for it—and spoke a soothing word. He believed the poor fellow delirious.
“I have laughed too, I have scorned, I have feigned to disbelieve,” said Lebrun, thickly and passionately. “I laugh no longer. Marengo, Hohenlinden, Jena, Austerlitz—what mortal brain unassisted could have so added victory to victory, could so, and for so long a time, have held the world’s destinies in the hollow of one hand? I am a soldier, monsieur, a simple, uneducated man, and yet I know things and I have seen things that would make the wise falter in their wisdom.”
“This red man, amongst others,” said the young officer conciliatingly.
A quiver of lightning at the moment glazed the dying face. Great drops stood on it; the fallen cheeks were filling with shadow; the eyeballs shone like porcelain. In spite of himself, a shiver ran down de Sainte Croix’s spine. There was certainly something uncanny in the night, even to war-toughened nerves. Lebrun’s voice had sunk to a whisper as he answered: