"Will you take five francs for your horse, you?"
"Five francs! That's not a bad one, ma! An officer's horse I can sell in ten minutes for five napoleons."
"Give me one of your napoleons," said the vivandière to Fabrizio. Then going up to the mounted soldier: "Get off, quickly," she said to him, "here's your napoleon."
The soldier dismounted, Fabrizio sprang gaily on to the saddle, the vivandière unstrapped the little portmanteau which was on his old horse.
"Come and help me, all of you!" she said to the soldiers, "is that the way you leave a lady to do the work?"
But no sooner had the captured horse felt the weight of the portmanteau than he began to rear, and Fabrizio, who was an excellent horseman, had to use all his strength to hold him.
"A good sign!" said the vivandière, "the gentleman is not accustomed to being tickled by portmanteaus."
"A general's horse," cried the man who had sold it, "a horse that's worth ten napoleons if it's worth a liard."
"Here are twenty francs," said Fabrizio, who could not contain himself for joy at feeling between his legs a horse that could really move.
At that moment a shot struck the line of willows, through which it passed obliquely, and Fabrizio had the curious spectacle of all those little branches flying this way and that as though mown down by a stroke of the scythe.