“You are in error there,” said the Frenchman. “It was the desire to serve, not to injure you, suggested my present course. It remains with yourself to show that my interest was not misplaced.”
“Let me understand you more clearly. What is expected of me?”
“The answers to questions which doubtless every countryman of yours and mine could reply to from the public papers, but which, to us here, remote from intercourse and knowledge, are matters of slow acquirement.” While the French officer spoke, he continued to search among the papers before him for some document, and at length, taking up a small slip of paper, resumed: “For instance, the 'Moniteur' asserts that you meditate sending a force from India to cross the Red Sea and the Desert, and menace us by an attack in the rear as well as in the front. This reads so like a fragment of an Oriental tale, that I can forgive the smile with which you hear it.”
“Nay, sir; you have misinterpreted my meaning,” said the Knight, calmly. “I am free to confess I thought this intelligence was no secret. The form of our Government, the public discussions of our Houses, the freedom of our press, are little favorable to mystery. If you have nothing to ask of me more difficult to answer than this—”
“And the expedition of Acre,—is this also correct?”
“Perfectly so. A combined movement, which shall compel you to evacuate the country, is in preparation.”
“Parbleu, sir,” said the Frenchman, stamping his foot with impatience, “these are somewhat bold words for a man in your situation to one in mine.”
“I fancy, sir, that circumstance affects the issue I allude to very slightly indeed; even though the officer to whom I address myself should be General Menou, the Commander-in-Chief.”
“And if I be, sir, and if you know it,” said Menou,—for it was he,—his face suffused with anger, “is it consistent with the respect due to my position and to your own safety, to speak thus?”
“For the first, sir, although a mere surmise on my part, I humbly hope I have made no transgression; for the last, I have very little reason to feel any solicitude, knowing that if you hurt a hair of my head, a heavy reprisal will await such of your own officers as may be taken, and the events of yesterday may have told you that a contingency of this sort is neither improbable nor remote.”