At Bayonne, a garrison town on the south frontier of France, two sentinels walked lethargically, crossing and recrossing before the governor's house.Suddenly their official drowsiness burst into energy; for a pale, grisly man, in rusty, defaced, dirty, and torn regimentals, was walking into the courtyard as if it belonged to him.The sentinels lowered their muskets, and crossed them with a clash before the gateway.
The scarecrow did not start back.He stopped and looked down with a smile at the steel barrier the soldiers had improvised for him, then drew himself a little up, carried his hand carelessly to his cap, which was nearly in two, and gave the name of an officer in the French army.
If you or I, dressed like a beggar who years ago had stolen regimentals and worn them down to civil garments, had addressed these soldiers with these very same words, the bayonets would have kissed closer, or perhaps the points been turned against our sacred and rusty person: but there is a freemasonry of the sword.The light, imperious hand that touched that battered cap, and the quiet clear tone of command told.The sentinels slowly recovered their pieces, but still looked uneasy and doubtful in their minds.The battered one saw this, and gave a sort of lofty smile; he turned up his cuffs and showed his wrists, and drew himself still higher.
The sentinels shouldered their pieces sharp, then dropped them simultaneously with a clatter and ring upon the pavement.
"Pass, captain."
The rusty figure rang the governor's bell.A servant came and eyed him with horror and contempt.He gave his name, and begged to see the governor.The servant left him in the hall, and went up-stairs to tell his master.At the name the governor reflected, then frowned, then bade his servant reach him down a certain book.He inspected it."I thought so: any one with him?""No, your excellency."
"Load my pistols, put them on the table, show him in, and then order a guard to the door."The governor was a stern veteran with a powerful brow, a shaggy eyebrow, and a piercing eye.He never rose, but leaned his chin on his hand, and his elbow on a table that stood between them, and eyed his visitor very fixedly and strangely."We did not expect to see you on this side the Pyrenees," said he gravely.
"Nor I myself, governor."
"What do you come for?"
"A suit of regimentals, and money to take me to Paris.""And suppose, instead of that, I turn out a corporal's guard, and bid them shoot you in the courtyard?""It would be the drollest thing you ever did, all things considered,"said the other coolly, but bitterly.
The governor looked for the book he had lately consulted, found the page, handed it to the rusty officer, and watched him keenly: the blood rushed all over his face, and his lip trembled; but his eye dwelt stern yet sorrowful on the governor.
"I have read your book, now read mine." He drew off his coat and showed his wrists and arms, blue and waled."Can you read that, sir?""No."
"All the better for you: Spanish fetters, general." He showed a white scar on his shoulder."Can you read that? This is what I cut out of it," and he handed the governor a little round stone as big and almost as regular as a musket-ball.
"Humph! that could hardly have been fired from a French musket.""Can you read this?" and he showed him a long cicatrix on his other arm.
"Knife I think," said the governor.
"You are right, sir: Spanish knife.Can you read this?" and opening his bosom he showed a raw wound on his breast.
"Oh, the devil!" cried the governor.
The wounded man put his rusty coat on again, and stood erect, and haughty, and silent.
The general eyed him, and saw his great spirit shining through this man.The more he looked the less could the scarecrow veil the hero from his practised eye.He said there must be some mistake, or else he was in his dotage; after a moment's hesitation, he added, "Be seated, if you please, and tell me what you have been doing all these years.""Suffering."
"Not all the time, I suppose."
"Without intermission."
"But what? suffering what?"
"Cold, hunger, darkness, wounds, solitude, sickness, despair, prison, all that man can suffer.""Impossible! a man would be dead at that rate before this.""I should have died a dozen deaths but for one thing; I had promised her to live."There was a pause.Then the old soldier said gravely, but more kindly, to the young one, "Tell me the facts, captain" (the first time he had acknowledged his visitor's military rank).
An hour had scarce elapsed since the rusty figure was stopped by the sentinels at the gate, when two glittering officers passed out under the same archway, followed by a servant carrying a furred cloak.
The sentinels presented arms.The elder of these officers was the governor: the younger was the late scarecrow, in a brand-new uniform belonging to the governor's son.He shone out now in his true light; the beau ideal of a patrician soldier; one would have said he had been born with a sword by his side and drilled by nature, so straight and smart, yet easy he was in every movement.He was like a falcon, eye and all, only, as it were, down at the bottom of the hawk's eye lay a dove's eye.That compound and varying eye seemed to say, I can love, I can fight: I can fight, I can love, as few of you can do either.
The old man was trying to persuade him to stay at Bayonne, until his wound should be cured.
"No, general, I have other wounds to cure of longer standing than this one.""Well, promise me to lay up at Paris."
"General, I shall stay an hour at Paris.""An hour in Paris! Well, at least call at the War Office and present this letter."That same afternoon, wrapped in the governor's furred cloak, the young officer lay at his full length in the coupe of the diligence, the whole of which the governor had peremptorily demanded for him, and rolled day and night towards Paris.
