Then a voice, that certainly was not the one he expected, called to him. He raised a flushed and tearful face from the bed, and met the inquiring eyes of his father's old friend, and the "protector" of the Bonaparte family, General Marbeuf, formerly the French commander in Corsica.
"Why, Napoleon, boy! what does all this mean?" inquired the general. "Have you been in mischief? What is the trouble?"
The visit came as a climax to a most exciting event. In it Napoleon saw escape from the disgrace he so feared, and the injustice against which he so rebelled. With a joyful shout he flung himself impulsively at his friend's feet, clasped his knees, and begged for his protection. The boy, you see, was still unnerved and over-wrought, and was not as cool or self-possessed as usual.
Gradually, however, he calmed down, and told General Marbeuf the whole story.
The general was indignant at the sentence. But he laughed heartily at the idea of this fourteen-year-old boy challenging another to a duel.
"Why, what a fire-eater it is!" he cried. "But you had provocation, boy. This Bouquet is a sneak, and your teacher is a tyrant. But we will change it all; see, now! I will seek out the principal. I will explain it all. He shall see it rightly, and you shall not be thus disgraced. No, sir! not if I, General Marbeuf, intrench myself alone with you behind what is left of your slushy snow-fort yonder, and fight all Brienne school in your behalf—teachers and all. So cheer up, lad! we will make it right."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
RECOMMENDED FOR PROMOTION
General Marbeuf did make it all right. Bouquet was called to account; the teacher who had so often made it unpleasant for Napoleon was sharply reprimanded; and the principal, having his attention drawn to the persistent persecution of this boy from Corsica, consented to his release from imprisonment, while sternly lecturing him on the sin of duelling.