“If I could only encounter that Monsieur Caron!” said the Colonel sweetly.
And, lo! under the wall of a churchyard they came plump upon the very gentleman, sitting down to rest with his comrade Pepino.
It seemed a providence. The village, for all else, appeared deserted, depopulated.
Luc scrambled to his feet, with his face, lean and mobile, twitching under its tan. The Colonel, seated on his horse, eyed him pleasantly, and nodded.
He was hardly good to look at by day, this Colonel. It seemed somehow more deadly to play with him than it had seemed under the starlight. He had all the features of man exaggerated but his eyes, which were small and infamous—great teeth, great brows, great bones, and a moustache like a sea-lion’s. He could have taken Faith, Hope, and Charity together in his arms, and crushed them into pulp against his enormous chest. Only the lusts of sex and ambition were in any ways his masters. But, for a wonder, his voice was soft.
“Son of France,” he said, “thou hast mistaken the road to Rousillon.”
Luc, startled out of his readiness, had no word of reply. Pepino crouched, whimpering, unnoticed as yet.
“What is that beside him?” asked the Colonel.
A soldier hoisted up the peep-show, set it on its legs, and looked in.
“Blank treason, Colonel,” said he. “Here is the Emperor himself spitting fire.”