“Swear not to leave them!”
I felt I could not resist any longer.
“I swear it, general, but on one condition: that your soldiers consent to serve as escort to Countess L—— from her château to the frontier, as she wishes to escape with her children and rejoin her husband, who is in exile.”
“What! Countess L——, Arthur’s wife?”
“The same, general,” I replied; “and it was to implore your protection for her in her hour of need, as well as to convey to you the information she had received of the Russian ambuscade, that determined me to accept this dangerous mission.”
“Thanks, my child—thanks for her and thanks for me. Gentlemen,” he added, turning to his officers, who, silent and sad, were standing at the other end of the tent, “you will obey this young officer until my successor be appointed from headquarters. This is my last order, my last prayer. And as long as he, though a stranger, fights at the head of your column, you will not again forget, I hope, that the cause for which you are fighting is a sacred one, the most holy of all causes, for it is the cause of God and your country.”
The officers hung their heads at this tacit reproach—the only one addressed to them by the hero whom they had allowed to be slain in so cowardly a manner. After another fainting fit the general made me a sign to draw close to him. I knelt down by his side. “If death spares you,” he said, “go and tell my poor mother how I died. Console her, and try and replace me to her; for I am the only thing she has left in the world.”
Here tears filled his eyes, which he turned away to hide his emotion from his officers. The surgeon had just finished dressing his wounds, but he shook his head sadly as he rose. The general perceived the movement and said:
“My poor friend! you have given yourself a great deal of trouble, and all for nothing; but I am just as grateful to you.”
The surgeon wrung his hand, too much moved to speak. Then I took courage and said: