“Halt, citizen!” called the officer, as I came up. “I must ask you to dismount,” he added, looking at me with eyes of extraordinary brilliancy.
“Willingly,” I replied, “if one of your men will hold my horse;” but two of them had him by the bridle before the words were fully uttered.
“Now, citizen,” continued the officer, urbanely, as I sprang from the saddle and faced him, “there are a few questions which I shall have to ask you. But the sun is warm, and to stand is fatiguing, so let us sit down together in the shade of that tree yonder.”
“Very well,” I assented, and followed him to a spot where we were defended not only from the rays of sun but also from the curious ears of the soldiers of the detachment, which still held its position across the road.
My companion paused a moment to look at me before he began his questioning, and gave me in turn the opportunity to examine him. He was a tall, raw-boned man, evidently of enormous strength. His face was roughened by wind and rain and burned to a deep red by the sun. A ferocious mustache shaded mouth and chin, and his eyes gleamed behind their bushy brows like those of a beast in ambush. His hair was streaked with gray, but I judged not so much from age,—for his whole being was instinct with fire and vigor,—as from the appalling scenes in which he had played a part. He embodied for me at that moment the very spirit of the Revolution, irate, implacable, but with a certain rude sense of honor and of justice and a confused belief that its cause was in some way bound up with human rights and human progress.
“Come, citizen,” he began at last, “your name?”
“Jean Tavernay,” I answered, deeming it wise to omit the preposition.
“Your home?”
“Near Beaufort.”
“Your destination?”