The sticks swung down, but somehow they faltered, for the drummer was shaking now.
“I advance Colonel Lagroin to the rank of General in my Household Troops, and I command you to obey him as such.”
Then he beckoned, and the old man drew near. Stooping, he pinned the order upon his breast. When the sergeant saw what it was, he turned pale, trembled, and the drumsticks fell from his hand. His eyes shone like sun on wet glass, then tears sprang from them upon his face. He caught Valmond’s hand and kissed it, and cried, oblivious of them all:
“Ah, sire, sire! It is true. It is true. I know that ribbon, and I know you are a Napoleon. Sire, I love you, and I will die for you!”
For the first time that day a touch of the fantastic came into Valmond’s manner.
“General,” he said, “the centuries look down on us as they looked down on him, your sire—and mine!”
He doffed his hat, and the hats of all likewise came off in a strange quiet. A cheer followed, and Valmond motioned for wine to go round freely. Then he got off his horse, and, taking the weeping old man by the arm, himself loosening the drum from his belt, they passed into the hotel.
“A cheerful bit of foolery and treason,” said Monsieur De la Riviere to Madame Chalice.
“My dear Seigneur, if you only had more humour and less patriotism!” she answered. “Treason may have its virtues. It certainly is interesting, which, in your present gloomy state, you are not.”
“I wonder, madame, that you can countenance this imposture,” he broke out.