"They are past hope, except the French boy, your Majesty," said Yeovil, who having recovered his own consciousness speedily had been examining them meanwhile. "I have some skill in wounds. One Cossack is already dead. It would be a mercy to put that other out of his misery with that horrible scythe slash."
"The Russian officer?"
"Gone, too."
"And who are you?"
"I am a barrister," answered the Englishman in bad but comprehensible French.
"A man of the law. You look it not," said the Emperor, smiling faintly.
"Necessity makes us all resort to the sword," said Sir Gervaise, looking at his bloody blade, for he had fought valiantly with the rest and would have been killed but he had been knocked senseless with that billet of wood which had hit him on the head and felled him to the floor.
"You are, by your language, an Englishman."
"I am, and proud of it."
"The English," said Napoleon slowly, "have been my bitterest enemies."