"Impossible!" he repeated. "Oh, oh! Have we reached that point? Come, let us have an explanation, once for all."
"You are right; the hour has arrived: let us have a hearty explanation."
The count drew up a butaca, sat down opposite Valentine, took a cigar from the case his foster brother handed him, and lit it. The hunter followed all his movements attentively. When he saw him comfortably installed, he said,—
"Speak."
"Alas! My life has nothing very interesting in it; it has resembled that of all adventurers. At one time rich, at another poor, I have wandered about, traversing Mexico in every direction, dragging after me the memory of my lost happiness, like the galley slaves cannon ball. For a moment I imagined that a future might still exist for me, and that I might at least regain my rank in the world, if I did not secure again a position like that I had lost I started for San Francisco, that weird Eldorado, whose marvels the hundred-mouthed rumour was narrating. There I found myself mixed up with a crowd of greedy and unbridled adventurers, whose life was one continued orgy, and whose sole passion was gold. I saw there, within a few months, the most prodigious metamorphoses. I saw the most scandalous fortunes spring up and collapse again, and plunging resolutely into this gulf, I demanded from chance my share of feverish joys and intoxicating emotions; but I lacked faith, and nothing succeeded with me. I tried every profession, ever pursued by that implacable fatality which was determined to crush me. I had great difficulty in saving myself from a death by hunger. In turn hunter, porter, Heaven knows what, my efforts availed nothing in that Babel, where the condemned of civilisation jostled each other, who, all marked with the indelible seal of Dante's reprobates, piled ruin on ruin to form themselves a pedestal of ingots, which was immediately overthrown by another. Disgusted with this mingled life of blood, filth, rags, and gold, I set off, resolved to become a drover. A noble profession, is it not, for a Count de Prébois, whose ancestors made three crusades?" he added, with a bitter laugh. "But I knew generals ostlers, marquises waiters; hence I, who had never been anything, could, without any great degradation, become a trader in cattle. And then I had another object in the choice of my profession. Ever since my arrival in North America I have been looking for you: I hoped to find you again some day. For the first time fortune has smiled on me, you see, as I have succeeded in meeting with you. That is all I had to say to you. Now you know as much about my life as I do; so ask me no more."
After these words, uttered in a sharp voice, the count threw himself back on his butaca, relit his cigar, crossed his arms on his chest, and seemed determined not to add a word. Valentine looked at him for a long time with the most concentrated attention, at times tossing his head, and frowning with evident dissatisfaction. At length he resolved to renew the conversation.
"Hum!" he said, "I now know your whole life, I grant it. There is nothing very extraordinary about it in a country like that where we are. It in no way departs from the common law. You would do very wrong to complain."
"I do not complain," the count exclaimed quickly; "I merely assert a fact."
"Of course," Valentine said; "and yet, in all you have told me, one point remains obscure to me."
"Which?"