“The Turks no sooner perceived them than they wheeled and fled; and so we returned to the camp, with a loss of some twenty brave fellows, and none the wiser for all our trouble.
“'What shall I do for you, friend?' said the general to me, as I stood by his orders at the door of his tent, 'what shall I do for you?'
“Ma foi! said I, with a shrug of my shoulders, 'I can't well say at a moment; perhaps the best thing would be to promise you 'd never take me as one of your escort when you make such an expedition as this morning's.'
“'No, no, I 'll not say that. Who are you? What's your grade?'
“'François, maître d'armes of the Fourth Chasseurs of the Guard,' said I, proudly. And, indeed, I thought he might have known me without the question.
“'Ah, indeed!' replied he, gravely. 'Promotion is then of no use here; a maître d'armes, like a general of division, is at the top of the tree. Come, I have it; a fellow of your sort is never out of scrapes,—always duelling and quarrelling, under arrest three days in every week; I know you well. Now, Maître François, I 'll forgive you the first time you ask me for any offence within my power to pardon. Go; you are satisfied with that promise,—is it not so?'
“'Yes, General; and I'll soon jog your memory about it,' said I, saluting and retiring from the tent.
“I see some old 'braves' of the Pyramids about me now,” continued François, “and so I need not dwell on the events of the campaign. You all know how General Bonaparte left the army to Kléber, and went back to France; and somehow we never had much luck after that. But so it was, I came back with the regiment, and was at the battle of Marengo when our brigade captured four guns of Skal's battery, and carried off eleven of their officers our prisoners. You'd wonder now, Comrades, how that piece of good fortune should turn out so ill for me; but such was the case. After the battle was gained, General Bonaparte retired to Gerofola with his staff, and I was ordered to proceed after him, with the Hauptmann Klingenswert of the Austrian army,—one of our prisoners who had served on Melas's staff, and knew everything about the effective strength of the army and all their plans.
“We set off at daybreak. It was in June, and a lovely morning too; and as my prisoner was an officer and a man of honor, I took no escort, but rode along at his side. We halted at noon to dine in a little grove of cedars, where I opened my canteen and spread the contents on the grass: and after regaling ourselves pleasantly, we lighted our meerschaums and chatted away like old comrades over the war and its chances. A more agreeable fellow than the Austrian I never met. He told me his whole history, and I told him mine; and we drank Brüderschaft together, and swore I don't know how many eternal friendships. The devil was just amusing himself with us all this time though, as you 'll see presently; for we soon got into an argument about the charge in which our brigade captured the guns. He said that if the ammunition had not failed we never would have dared the attack; and I swore that the discharges were pouring in while we rode down on the battery.
“We grew warm with the dispute, and drank deeper to cool us; and, what between the wine and our own passion, we became downright angry, and went so far as to interchange something not like Brüderschaft.