"Or both," the Warlock amended, "with the aid of a double-barreled pistol. Look here! Was ever a more startling likeness between a dead man and a living, than is presented at this moment before Your Excellency and myself?"
And returning the salute of a young soldier in the white-faced blue uniform of the Guards Infantry, who in the act of galloping past upon a powerful if wearied beast, had checked his stride so as not to splash mud upon the Chancellor and the great Field-Marshal, Moltke signed to him to halt.
"That he is a relative of Max Valverden's," said Bismarck, "I would have wagered you a dozen of Moselle, of Comet vintage, if Your Excellency were not already inclined to bet on the relationship."
"I never bet," chirped Moltke, "except in boxes of chocolate and gloves with my nieces, and then it is a matter of certainty beforehand that the little girls are going to win!" And he turned his narrow, glittering gaze upon the object of his curiosity, who was now fixed in the front attitude of attention, immovable as an equestrian statue of painted stone.
"I will not detain you upon what is no doubt a pressing errand," said the Chief of the Great Staff, smiling amiably in the Guardsman's rigid countenance. "I merely wished to ask your name, and why it is that a private soldier of Guard Infantry happens to be riding an officer's horse?"
"Pardon, General Field-Marshal!" The statue blushed becomingly. "My name is Carl Bernhard von Schön Valverden, at the service of Your Excellency. Of my rank in the Army I am hardly at this moment certain, as I was promoted Corporal and Sergeant yesterday, during the action of the Guard at St. Privat and Amanvilliers, and am now acting temporarily as junior Captain of my company, nearly all our officers having been killed."
"I congratulate you, Sergeant!" rejoined the Field-Marshal cordially, "and am glad that you, as successor to the family honors of an officer who served the Prussian Army with distinction, seem likely to follow in the steps of your relative. Prut!—that was a close thing!"
"Hellishly so!" agreed Bismarck.
For the flushed and laughing face of Valverden had suddenly hardened and sharpened. With lightning quickness he had drawn a revolver from a pouch strapped to his belt and fired across the withers of the big brown mare bestridden by the Iron Chancellor. As the single shot rang out, another followed almost instantly, and the midmost of a knot of three dismounted Lancers, their heads, legs, and arms swathed in clumsy, blood-stained bandages, who had halted to rest by the side of the muddy road, yelled shrilly and pitched heavily backward, dropping, with the broken pair of clothes-props that had served him as crutches, a cavalry holster-pistol that had exploded as it fell.
Said Valverden, stiffening his features in the endeavor to disguise his almost passionate elation: "Your Excellencies will pardon me, but I saw the fellow was dangerous...."