“Sir,” he exclaimed, “the general desires you to come to him immediately.”
“Your general!” I exclaimed joyfully. “Why, I saw him fall with my own eyes. He is not dead, then?”
“Not yet; but his wounds are mortal, and I fear there is no hope of saving him.”
I followed the officer hastily to a tent where the poor general was lying on a camp-bed. His face was literally hacked with sabrecuts; one ball had gone through his chest, and the surgeon, who was bending over him, was trying in vain to stanch the blood which was escaping in a black stream from this gaping wound. I took off my cap and bowed low before the dying hero.
“Sir,” he said in so weak a voice that I had to bend down my ear close to him to be able to hear, “I do not know you, and I do not remember ever to have seen you before; but whoever you may be, may God bless you for what you have done this day! You have saved my troops from dishonor, and me from having my last moments embittered by the cruelest sorrow I could ever have experienced.”
At this moment a rush of blood from his mouth threatened to stifle the dying man. When he had a little recovered he spoke again:
“Whence do you come, and what is your name?”
“I am French, and my name is Michael,” I replied, blushing deeply. Here the general drew off a ring from his finger. It was a signet-ring used throughout the war as a password of command.
“Take this,” he said, “and swear to me not to leave my troops till the Central Committee have sent another officer to take my place. This is the last request of a dying man, and I feel sure that you will not refuse it to me.”
I hesitated an instant. How reveal my secret and explain my anomalous position at such a moment? The general, striving to raise his voice, reiterated his dying entreaty: