Ah! thought I, my good fellow, you have shot your bolt too high this time; and in a careless, easy way, I asked, "What might have been the number of the corps?"
"How can it concern you?" said he, with a savage vehemence. "You say that you are not a spy. To what end these questions? As it is, you have made this hovel, which has been my shelter for some weeks back, no longer of any service to me. I will not be tracked. I will not suffer espionage, by heaven!" cried he, as he dashed his clenched fist against the ground beside him. His eyes, as he spoke, glared with all the wildness of insanity, and great drops of sweat hung upon his damp forehead.
"Is it too much," continued he, with all the vehemence of passion, "is it too much that I was master here? Are these walls too luxurious? Is there the sign of foreign gold in this tasteful furniture and the splendor of these hangings? Or is this"—and he stretched out his lean and naked arms as he spoke—"is this the garb?—is this the garb of a man who can draw at will on the coffers of Royalty? Ay!" cried he, with a wild laugh, "if this is the price of my treachery, the treason might well be pardoned."
I did all I could to assuage the violence of his manner. I talked to him calmly and soberly of myself and of him, repeating over and over the assurance that I had neither the will nor the way to injure him. "You may be poor," said I, "and yet scarcely poorer than I am—friendless, and have as many to care for you as I have. Believe me, comrade, save in the matter of a few years the less on one side, and some services the more on the other, there is little to choose between us."
These few words, wrung from me in sorrowful sincerity, seemed to do more than all I had said previously, and he moved the lamp a little to one side that he might have a better view of me as I sat; and thus we remained for several minutes staring steadfastly at each other without a word spoken on either side. It was in vain that I sought in that face, livid and shrunk by famine—in that straggling matted hair, and that figure enveloped in rags, for any traces of former condition. Whatever might once have been his place in society, now he seemed the very lowest of that miserable tribe whose lives are at once the miracle and shame of our century.
"Except that my senses are always playing me false," said he, as he passed his hand across his eyes, "I could say that I have seen your face before. What was your corps?"
"The Ninth Hussars, 'the Tapageurs,' as they called them."
"When did you join—and where?" said he, with an eagerness that surprised me.
"At Nancy," said I, calmly.
"You were there with the advanced guard of Moreau's corps," said he, hastily; "you followed the regiment to the Moselle."