“Escaped!” returned one of the wounded guerillas, with swage exultation. “Escaped, my friend; to take ample vengeance for thee and me upon these murderers.”
“Silence!” dog exclaimed a chasseur, striking the captive a sharp blow upon the shoulder with the flat of his sabre-blade.
I never witnessed such a look as the insulted, but impotent guerilla directed at the Frenchman. Could rage, and hatred, and revenge, be concentrated in a glance, that look expressed them all.
“Oh, that this hand were free,” he murmured; “and that it clutched the knife that never failed it yet; and then, robber—.” He left the sentence incomplete; but none required further words to convey its purport.
A noise without, was heard. It was the measured step of marching men and in a few minutes the elite companies of the 16th Voltigeurs, entered and piled arms in the court-yard. Whatever was the cause of this military movement, its scale seemed far too extensive for the mere purpose of arresting two or three individuals who had made themselves obnoxious to the invaders; and this suspicion was confirmed, when it was announced that Colonel La Coste, the chief of General Laval’s staff, had arrived in person, to direct the promenade militaire, as the Frenchman termed this midnight expedition.
CHAPTER XXIX. THE EXECUTION.
“Charles. Be not afraid of danger or of death; for over us presides a destiny, which cannot be controlled. We all hasten to the fatal day: die we must, whether upon a bed of down, the field of battle, or the scaffold; one of these must be our lot.”—The Robbers.
A few minutes elapsed, when a movement among the soldiers near the door attracted my attention, and Colonel La Coste, attended by several officers of inferior rank, entered the kitchen of the posada. The commander was a soldier of the republican school; a hale, stout, man of sixty: one who, like the best of the French officers, had risen by merit from the ranks, without family, descent, wealth, or education. The honest boast of La Coste was, that he had been the architect of his own fortunes, and had raised himself to distinction. The colonel was highly esteemed as a soldier; but, if the times when his career commenced are remembered, it maybe readily supposed that La Coste was loose in his moral principles, cold to human suffering, and indifferent, provided the end were gained, as to the means that he employed in attaining it. The sternest hearts have generally some softer point that unites them to their fellow men, and the rude soldiers was no exception. That solitary place in his affections was occupied by the orphan of his sister; Henri le Ferre was the sole object of the love and ambition of the old republican—and, dead to others, the young lieutenant of chasseurs was dearer to that cold-hearted soldier than all the world beside. In the career of life, the most unpitying do not escape mortal visitations, which force the heart to feel. Henri had perished in the recent affair—and the misery that he himself had probably inflicted upon others, was about to fall on the head of one, whom sympathy for human suffering had never turned from a purpose which he conceived that duty pointed out.