"We would have been added to the diligence of yesterday, unless we had found some good soul brave enough to fish for us. But such things have been. Three years ago, after a great inundation, a workman alone saved five persons who were drowning near the Guillotière."
"We knew of him particularly," said Grugel, "as my cousin's best friend was one of the saved."
"True?" asked the soldier.
"And he owed his safety to the devotion of that young man."
"Oh! all the details of that action were admirable," said Darvon, with great warmth; "the frightened horse had pulled the carriage into the strongest of the current; on the shore the crowd looked on, without daring to go to their relief; there seemed to be no hope for the five persons in the carriage."
"Bah!" interrupted the soldier, "perhaps some of them could swim, and have got nicely out of the scrape."
Gontran disdained a reply.
"The carriage commenced to sink," continued he, "when a workman appeared with a small boat, which with difficulty he guided into the midst of the Rhone. Three times it was on the point of upsetting. The people who looked on from the shore cried out, 'Do not go any further; come ashore; you are going to perish.' But he did not listen to them—still advancing toward the carriage, which by dint of skill and courage, he finally reached."
"And most happily," the military man replied.
"Without doubt," replied Grugel, who remarked Gontran's movement of impatience, "but only good-hearted people find happiness in such acts."