“To be frank,” said Adolphe, gazing at the still-burning candle, “I only said ‘withdrawn’ to make it sound better. It really comes to this, that it will not be observed.”
The other bounded up in bed. “But, great God, man——”
“I know, I know! But I can’t help it—it is the First Consul’s orders. . . . The fact is, Bonaparte means to have this Marquis de Kersaint alive or dead—you have said as much yourself—and now, I suppose, he will get him.”
“My God!” said his friend, and lay down again in silence.
“If I had known what I was carrying,” said Adolphe after a little, “I might have had—an accident. But I had no idea, and it is done now. The order will be sent on to Auray and other places to-morrow.”
“Order! But it’s impossible—one can’t send an order like that! Surely a safe-conduct, once given, is the most sacred thing a soldier knows. If he does not observe it—O, it’s the dirtiest, most damnable treachery I ever heard of! Pah! is that the way they do things in Corsica?”
“Chut, mon ami, walls have ears,” said the aide-de-camp wearily. “But you are right; it is infamous. They say in Paris that he has all along wanted someone of whom to make an example, for the sake of the impression. Yet all the other leaders submitted, as you say. But this man who has held out so, besides that he put Bonaparte to inconvenience at Rivoli—ah, I forgot, you were there—is also, it appears, a ci-devant of the ci-devants; no less than the Duc de Trélan, in fact. Brune let that out too; Fouché, it seems, discovered it. So he would be worth capturing, and Brune, not being troubled with scruples, will obey orders. . . . And I brought them!”
“I wish now you had not told me,” said Brune’s young staff-officer.
Another than he had been told also, for walls have ears, and that by the side of their bed happened to be merely a cracked wooden partition. The officer of Bourmont’s disbanded army who lay ill in the next room had, therefore, heard every word of their conversation. He was Artus de Brencourt.