Part 3 (2/2)
”Never mind! a trifle!” exclaimed the soldier. ”At Ligny, the other day, where we smashed the Prussians into ten hundred thousand milliards of atoms, a bit of a sh.e.l.l cut me across the leg and opened an artery. It was spouting as high as the chimney, and in half a minute I had lost enough to fill a pitcher. I must have expired in another minute, if I had not whipped off my sash like a flash of lightning, tied it round my leg above the wound, whipt a bayonet out of the back of a dead Prussian, and pa.s.sing it under, made a tourniquet of it with a couple of twists, and so stayed the haemorrhage and saved my life. But, _sacrebleu_!
gentlemen, I lost so much blood, I have been as pale as the bottom of a plate ever since. No matter. A trifle. Blood well spent, gentlemen.” He applied himself now to his bottle of _vin ordinaire_.
The Marquis had closed his eyes, and looked resigned and disgusted, while all this was going on.
”_Garcon_,” said the officer, for the first time speaking in a low tone over the back of his chair to the waiter; ”who came in that traveling carriage, dark yellow and black, that stands in the middle of the yard, with arms and supporters emblazoned on the door, and a red stork, as red as my facings?”
The waiter could not say.
The eye of the eccentric officer, who had suddenly grown grim and serious, and seemed to have abandoned the general conversation to other people, lighted, as it were accidentally, on me.
”Pardon me, Monsieur,” he said. ”Did I not see you examining the panel of that carriage at the same time that I did so, this evening? Can you tell me who arrived in it?”
”I rather think the Count and Countess de St. Alyre.”
”And are they here, in the Belle etoile?” he asked.
”They have got apartments upstairs,” I answered.
He started up, and half pushed his chair from the table. He quickly sat down again, and I could hear him _sacre_-ing and muttering to himself, and grinning and scowling. I could not tell whether he was alarmed or furious.
I turned to say a word or two to the Marquis, but he was gone. Several other people had dropped out also, and the supper party soon broke up.
Two or three substantial pieces of wood smoldered on the hearth, for the night had turned out chilly. I sat down by the fire in a great armchair of carved oak, with a marvelously high back that looked as old as the days of Henry IV.
”_Garcon_,” said I, ”do you happen to know who that officer is?”
”That is Colonel Gaillarde, Monsieur.”
”Has he been often here?”
”Once before, Monsieur, for a week; it is a year since.”
”He is the palest man I ever saw.”
”That is true, Monsieur; he has been often taken for a _revenant_.”
”Can you give me a bottle of really good Burgundy?”
”The best in France, Monsieur.”
”Place it, and a gla.s.s by my side, on this table, if you please. I may sit here for half-an-hour.”
”Certainly, Monsieur.”
I was very comfortable, the wine excellent, and my thoughts glowing and serene. ”Beautiful Countess! Beautiful Countess! shall we ever be better acquainted?”
Chapter VI
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