“Shall you take your sword and helmet with you, Serge?” asked the boy.
The man stared, and looked at him sharply, before remaining silent for quite a minute.
“No,” he cried, angrily; “I shall take nothing that will bring up the past. I want to forget it all.”
“But what do you mean to do?” said Marcus.
“I don’t know yet, boy. Something will happen, I daresay; for we never know what’s going to take place to-morrow, and I shall leave all that.”
The man ceased speaking, and began almost caressingly to straighten and arrange the various pieces of military accoutrement that he had been burnishing, while Marcus sat leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, watching him sadly.
“I don’t like it, Serge,” he said at last.
“Nay, boy, and I don’t like it,” replied the man. “I said just now we never know what is going to take place to-morrow. Who would have thought yesterday that things could have been like this to-day? But here they are. Hah!” he cried passionately. “I wish I hadn’t shrunk away.”
“Shrunk away!” cried Marcus. “Why, you are bigger and stouter than ever you were.”
“Pah!” ejaculated the man, angrily. “I don’t mean that. I mean shrunk away as I did just now when you made that thrust at me with the sword.”