They looked at one another, the same thought was in the minds of all. The Sicilian said:
"You have done it! Yes, I knew you would. I am glad that he is gone, yet I am sorry for you, and still more sorry—" He stopped and shook his head.
"Yes," said a Pole; "that is the way, it is the woman always that suffers most."
The third, a Frenchman by birth, who found it better to be a Lorrainer in the Legion than to serve in his proper regiment in France, was the last to speak.
"It is done now, and we shall all be grieved at the loss of a good comrade, but the battalion will be happy once more. I salute," he continued, taking off his kepi, "the hero who has freed us from slavery."
We were silent for a time. Then the Frenchman asked me how it happened.
"I struck him, he drew his sword, and then I gave him my bayonet, voilà tout!"
"How often?"
"Three times."
"Very well," said the Sicilian; "then it must be all right. It is all right; the battalion must have a new adjutant now."