"What is monsieur's programme?" chirped the chevalier. "Does he dally with Fortune's train, or does he brush by her robes and seize the treasure which she guards? Shall mon ami live the short and merry life of conviviality with me in New York, or shall he choose the short and beastly bad career of a soldier?"
St. Udo Brand laughed bitterly.
"What is my life worth to me without fame to gild it?" growled he. "I have no gold to make it shine."
"Bravissima!" shouted the chevalier, clapping his hands; then, with a smile which just showed his long teeth in a hungry arch, "I, too, will go southward, because, that to me my life is very much worth, and I will do bravely to gild it with—gold. We will be brother colonels, mon ami, and Thoms—what shall you do?"
Thoms' evil face beamed with intelligence.
"I'll follow you masters as long as you live," uttered the smooth voice, humbly.
"We shall fight, by gar, for glory!" cried the chevalier. "At least, we shall say so. But each has his motive pardieu, and a sensible motive is mine. Ah, life is nothing without illusions, as Mendelssohn says."
"Nothing indeed," smiled the silent lips of Thoms, "nothing indeed."
Thus these three chose to walk together the road which had been apportioned them by that secret Power behind the scene, bound close together by Circumstance's chain, yet sundered in soul by walls as deep as dungeon walls, and the dusty banners, and golden rewards, and whistling balls of the battle-field beckoned to each with a separate welcome.
"Here you will win glory," they cried to St. Udo Brand.