"Once at our destination, you will forget, by degrees, your sorrow. We will work, we will live retired and tranquil, like good farmers, except occasionally trying our skill, as marksmen, on the Arabs. Ah! there La Louve will help us."
"If it should come to blows, I am at home there, Martial," said the
Slasher, slightly animated. I am unmarried, and I have been a trooper."
"And I a poacher!"
"But you—you have a wife, and these two children whom you have adopted. As for me, I have nothing but my hide, and since it can no longer serve as a screen for M. Rudolph, I have no regard for it. So, if we should be obliged to give them their change, it's my affair."
"Ah! we'll both have something to do with it."
"No; I alone—thunder! leave the Bedouins to me."
"Good; I would rather hear you speak thus than you did a short time since. Come, Slasher, we will be true brothers, and you can converse with me of your sorrow, if it endures, for I have my own. The recollection of this day will last all my life. One cannot see his mother, his sister, as I have seen mine, without forever bearing it in remembrance. Our situations are so similar that it is good for us to be together. We will not fear to look danger in the face; well, we will be half farmers, half soldiers. If we can start any game, we will hunt. If you wish to live alone, you can do so, and we will be near neighbors: if otherwise, we will all live together. We will bring up the children like honest people, and you shall be, almost, their uncle, while we will be brothers. How does it suit you?" said Martial, offering his hand to the Slasher.
"It suits me well, my good Martial; and then, sorrow shall kill me or I will kill it, as the saying is."
"It will not kill you—we shall grow old in our wilderness, and every night we will say, brother, thanks to M. Rudolph—that shall be our prayer for him."
"Martial, you put balsam on my wound."