A low whispering conversation was kept up by the soldiers around me. They were grumbling at the long distance they had to march, as the ‘affair’ might just as well have taken place on the glacis as two miles away. How different were my feelings—how dear to me was now every minute, every second of existence; how my heart leaped at each turn of the way, as I still saw a space to traverse and some little interval longer to live!
‘And mayhap after all,’ muttered one dark-faced fellow, ‘we shall have come all this way for nothing. There can be no fusillade without the general’s signature, so I heard the adjutant say; and who’s to promise that he ‘ll be at his quarters?’
‘Very true,’ said another; ‘he may be absent, or at table.’
‘At table!’ cried two or three together; ‘and what if he were?’
‘If he be,’ rejoined the former speaker, ‘we may go back again for our pains! I ought to know him well; I was his orderly for eight months, when I served in the “Légers,” and can tell you, my lads, I wouldn’t be the officer who would bring him a report or a return to sign when once he had opened out his napkin on his knee; and it’s not very far from his dinner-hour now.’
What a sudden thrill of hope ran through me! Perhaps I should be spared for another day.
‘No, no we’re all in time,’ exclaimed the sergeant; ‘I can see the general’s tent from this; and there he stands, with all his staff around him.’
‘Yes; and there go the other escorts—they will be up before us if we don’t make haste; quick-time, lads. Come along, mon cher,’ said he, addressing me—‘thou’rt not tired, I hope?’
‘Not tired!’ replied I; ‘but remember, sergeant, what a long journey I have before me.’
‘Pardi! I don’t believe all that rhodomontade about another world,’ said he gruffly; ‘the Republic settled that question.’