“And so, monsieur, what happened along it doubtless reminded me of Cooper's story—Bough of Oak and the case of Corporal Flint.”
He took another cigarette out of a box on the table, but he did not light it.
“In one of the little mining villages along this river with the enchanting name there was a man physically like the people of the Iliad; and with that, monsieur, he had a certain cast of mind not unHellenic. He was tall, weighed two hundred and forty pounds, lean as a gladiator, and in the vigor of golden youth.
“There were no wars to journey after and no adventures; but there was danger and adventure here. This land was full of cockle, winnowed out of Italy, Austria and the whole south of Europe. It took courage and the iron hand of the state to keep the peace. Here was a life of danger; and this Ionian—big, powerful, muscled like the heroes of the Circus Maximus—entered this perilous service.
“Monsieur, I have said his mind was Hellenic, like his big, wonderful body. Mark you how of heroic antiquity it was! It was his boast, among the perils that constantly beset him, that no criminal should ever take his life; that, if ever he should receive a mortal wound from the hand of the assassins about him, he would not wait to die in agony by it. He himself would sever the damaged thread of life and go out like a man!
“Observe, monsieur, how like the great heroes of legend—like the wounded Saul when he ordered his armor-bearer to kill him; like Brutus when he fell on his sword!”
He looked intently at the American.
“Doubtless, monsieur,” he went on, “those near this man along the Monongahela did not appreciate his attitude of grandeur; but to us, in the distance, it seemed great and noble.”
He looked out over the Mediterranean, where the great adventurers who cherished these lofty pagan ideals once beat along in the morning of the world.
“On an afternoon of summer,” he continued like one who begins a saga, “this man, alone and fearless, followed a violator of the law and arrested him in a house of the village. As he led the man away he noticed that an Italian followed. He was a little degenerate, wearing a green hat, and bearing now one name and now another. They traversed the village toward the municipal prison; and this creature, featured like a Parisian Apache, skulked behind.