“Yes,” said I, interrupting, “men like our friend Nicholas Naranovitsch!”
“Well, perhaps,” he replied, with a light laugh, “but don’t change the subject, Jeff, you’ve got a bad tendency to do so. I say there is no difficulty in getting spies; but it is not easy to find men well qualified for such work. Now one has been heard of at last, and, among other things, I am commissioned to secure him for the purpose of leading our troops across the Balkans.”
“The Balkans!” said I, in surprise; “you are a long way from that range.”
“The length of any way, Jeff, depends not so much upon the way as on the spirit of him who measures it. Ten miles to one man is a hundred miles to another, and vice versa.”
I could make no objection to that, for it was true. “Nevertheless,” said I, after a pause, “there may be spirits among the Turks who could render that, which is only a few days’ journey in ordinary circumstances, a six months’ business to the Russians.”
“Admitted heartily,” returned Nicholas, with animation; “if the Turk were not a brave foe, one could not take so much interest in the war.”
This last remark silenced me for a time. The view-point of my future kinsman was so utterly different from mine that I knew not what to reply. He evidently thought that a plucky foe, worthy of his steel, was most desirable, while to my mind it appeared obvious that the pluckier the foe the longer and more resolute would be the resistance, and, as a consequence, the greater the amount of bloodshed and of suffering to the women, children, and aged, the heavier the drain on the resources of both empires, and of addition to the burdens of generations yet unborn.
When, after a considerable time, I put the subject in this light before Nicholas, he laughed heartily, and said—
“Why, Jeff, at that rate you would knock all the romance out of war.”
“That were impossible, Nick,” I rejoined quickly, “for there is no romance whatever in war.”