"If I live, Rhoda Polly."
"Ah, if you live," repeated the girl, mechanically holding out her hand. And even as I looked, the bold bright look in her eyes was dimmed, as a pool greys over with the first coming of a breeze.
And thus I took my real farewell of Rhoda Polly. There was some of the black mould on my fingers as I went over to the shops to search for Hugh Deventer.
CHAPTER XIII
WE SEEK GARIBALDI
Hugh Deventer and I reached Orange only to hear that the recruiting parties of the Garibaldians had gone away north. But on the railway, hundreds of wagons laden with supplies were moving in the same direction, and with the conductors of these we made what interest we could.
We showed the letter we had brought from Gaston Cremieux, but these were men of the Saône and Isère, who had never heard of the agitator. But Hugh's willing help during heavy hours of loading and "transhipment," and perhaps also the multitude and flavour of my tales of Scotland, gained us a footing.
From them we heard with pride of what had already been done by Garibaldi, with such wretched material, and how the great Manteuffel himself, in his dispatches, had allowed the excellence of Garibaldi's tactics.
What we were most afraid of was that the whole war would be over before we got a chance. The men of the Isère, however, who on the strength of six months' campaigning considered themselves veterans, laughed scornfully at our young enthusiasms. They would march. They would fight. But as for beating the Germans in the long run it was impossible. That time had gone by when Bazaine had let himself be locked up in Metz.