The Companions of Jehu Part 12

"Bah! Frankly, what is he then?"

"He is in all probability a young man of as good a family as yours or mine."

"Count Horn, whom the Regent ordered broken on the wheel at the Place de Greve, was also a man of good family, and the proof is that all the n.o.bility of Paris sent their carriages to his execution."

"Count Horn, if I remember rightly, murdered a Jew to steal a note of hand which he was unable to meet. No one would dare a.s.sert that a Companion of Jehu had ever so much as harmed the hair of an infant."

"Well, be it so. We will admit that the Company was founded upon a philanthropic basis, to re-establish the balance of fortunes, redress the whims of chance and reform the abuses of society. Though he may be a robber, after the fashion of Karl Moor, your friend Morgan--was it not Morgan that this honest citizen called himself?"

"Yes," said the Englishman.

"Well, your friend Morgan is none the less a thief."

Citizen Alfred de Barjols turned very pale.

"Citizen Morgan is not my friend," replied the young aristocrat; "but if he were I should feel honored by his friendship."

"No doubt," replied Roland, laughing. "As Voltaire says: 'The friendship of a great man is a blessing from the G.o.ds.'"

"Roland, Roland!" observed his comrade in a low tone.

"Oh! general," replied the latter, letting his companion's rank escape him, perhaps intentionally, "I implore you, let me continue this discussion, which interests me in the highest degree."

His friend shrugged his shoulders.

"But, citizen," continued the young man with strange persistence, "I stand in need of correction. I left France two years ago, and during my absence so many things have changed, such as dress, morals, and accents, that even the language may have changed also. In the language of the day in France what do you call stopping coaches and taking the money which they contain?"

"Sir," said the young n.o.ble, in the tone of a man determined to sustain his argument to its end, "I call that war. Here is your companion whom you have just called general; he as a military man will tell you that, apart from the pleasure of killing and being killed, the generals of all ages have never done anything else than what the citizen Morgan is doing?"

"What!" exclaimed the young man, whose eyes flashed fire. "You dare to compare--"

"Permit the gentleman to develop his theory, Roland," said the dark traveller, whose eyes, unlike those of his companion, which dilated as they flamed, were veiled by long black lashes, thus concealing all that was pa.s.sing in his mind.

"Ah!" said the young man in his curt tone, "you see that you, yourself, are becoming interested in the discussion." Then, turning to the young n.o.ble, whom he seemed to have selected for his antagonist, he said: "Continue, sir, continue; the general permits it."

The young n.o.ble flushed as visibly as he had paled a moment before.

Between clinched teeth, his elbow on the table, his chin on his clinched hand, as if to draw as close to his adversary as possible, he said with a Provencal accent, which grew more p.r.o.nounced as the discussion waxed hotter: "Since _the general_ permits"--emphasizing the two words--"I shall have the honor to tell him and you, too, citizen, that I believe I have read in Plutarch that Alexander the Great, when he started for India, took with him but eighteen or twenty talents in gold, something like one hundred or one hundred and twenty thousand francs. Now, do you suppose that with these eighteen or twenty talents alone he fed his army, won the battle of Granicus, subdued Asia Minor, conquered Tyre, Gaza, Syria and Egypt, built Alexandria, penetrated to Lybia, had himself declared Son of Jupiter by the oracle of Ammon, penetrated as far as the Hyphases, and, when his soldiers refused to follow him further, returned to Babylon, where he surpa.s.sed in luxury, debauchery and self-indulgence the most debauched and voluptuous of the kings of Asia? Did Macedonia furnish his supplies? Do you believe that King Philip, most indigent of the kings of poverty-stricken Greece, honored the drafts his son drew upon him? Not so. Alexander did as citizen Morgan is doing; only, instead of stopping the coaches on the highroads, he pillaged cities, held kings for ransom, levied contributions from the conquered countries. Let us turn to Hannibal. You know how he left Carthage, don't you? He did not have even the eighteen or twenty talents of his predecessor; and as he needed money, he seized and sacked the city of Saguntum in the midst of peace, in defiance of the fealty of treaties. After that he was rich and could begin his campaign. Forgive me if this time I no longer quote Plutarch, but Cornelius Nepos. I will spare you the details of his descent from the Pyrenees, how he crossed the Alps and the three battles which he won, seizing each time the treasures of the vanquished, and turn to the five or six years he spent in Campania. Do you believe that he and his army paid the Capuans for their subsistence, and that the bankers of Carthage, with whom he had quarrelled, supplied him with funds? No; war fed war--the Morgan system, citizen. Let us pa.s.s on to Caesar. Ah, Caesar! That's another story. He left for Spain with some thirty millions of debt, and returned with practically the same. He started for Gaul, where he spent ten years with our ancestors. During these ten years he sent over one hundred millions to Rome, repa.s.sed the Alps, crossed the Rubicon, marched straight to the Capitol, forced the gates of the Temple of Saturn, where the treasury was, seized sufficient for his private needs--and not for those of the Republic--three thousand pounds of gold in ingots; and died (he whom creditors twenty years earlier refused to allow to leave his little house in the Suburra) leaving two or three thousand sesterces per head to the citizens, ten or twelve millions to Calpurnia, and thirty or forty millions to Octavius; always the Morgan system, save that Morgan, I am sure, would die sooner than subvert to his personal needs either the silver of the Gauls or the gold of the capital. Now let us spring over eighteen centuries and come to the General Buonaparte." And the young aristocrat, after the fashion of the enemies of the Conqueror of Italy, affected to emphasize the _u_, which Bonaparte had eliminated from his name, and the _e_, from which he had removed the accent.

This affectation seemed to irritate Roland intensely. He made a movement as if to spring forward, but his companion stopped him.

"Let be," said he, "let be, Roland. I am quite sure that citizen Barjols will not say the General Buonaparte, as he calls him, is a thief."

"No, I will not say it; but there is an Italian proverb which says it for me."

"What is the proverb?" demanded the general in his companion's stead, fixing his calm, limpid eye upon the young n.o.ble.

"I give it in all its simplicity: 'Francesi non sono tutti ladroni, ma buona parte'; which means: 'All Frenchmen are not thieves, but--"

"A good part are?" concluded Roland.

"Yes, 'Buonaparte,'" replied Alfred de Barjols.

Scarcely had these insolent words left the young aristocrat's lips than the plate with which Roland was playing flew from his hands and struck De Barjols full in the face. The women screamed, the men rose to their feet. Roland burst into that nervous laugh which was habitual with him, and threw himself back in his chair. The young aristocrat remained calm, although the blood was trickling from his brow to his cheek.

At this moment the conductor entered with the usual formula:

"Come! citizen travellers, take your places."

The travellers, anxious to leave the scene of the quarrel, rushed to the door.

"Pardon me, sir," said Alfred de Barjols to Roland, "you do not go by diligence, I hope?"

"No, sir, I travel by post; but you need have no fear; I shall not depart."

"Nor I," said the Englishman. "Have them unharness my horses; I shall remain."

"I must go," sighed the dark young man whom Roland had addressed as general. "You know it is necessary, my friend; my presence yonder is absolutely imperative. But I swear that I would not leave you if I could possibly avoid it."

In saying these words his voice betrayed an emotion of which, judging from its usual harsh, metallic ring, it had seemed incapable. Roland, on the contrary, seemed overjoyed. His belligerent nature seemed to expand at the approach of a danger to which he had perhaps not given rise, but which he at least had not endeavored to avoid.

"Good! general," he said. "We were to part at Lyons, since you have had the kindness to grant me a month's furlough to visit my family at Bourg.

It is merely some hundred and sixty miles or so less than we intended, that is all. I shall rejoin you in Paris. But you know if you need a devoted arm, and a man who never sulks, think of me!"

"You may rest easy on that score, Roland," exclaimed the general.

Then, looking attentively at the two adversaries, he added with an indescribable note of tenderness: "Above all, Roland, do not let yourself be killed; but if it is a possible thing don't kill your adversary. Everything considered, he is a gallant man, and the day will come when I shall need such men at my side."

"I shall do my best, general; don't be alarmed." At this moment the landlord appeared upon the thresh-hold of the door.

"The post-chaise is ready," said he.

The general took his hat and his cane, which he had laid upon the chair.

Roland, on the contrary, followed him bareheaded, that all might see plainly he did not intend to leave with his friend. Alfred de Barjols, therefore, offered no opposition to his leaving the room. Besides, it was easy to see that his adversary was of those who seek rather than avoid quarrels.

"Just the same," said the general, seating himself in the carriage to which Roland had escorted him, "my heart is heavy at leaving you thus, Roland, without a friend to act as your second."

"Good! Don't worry about that, general; seconds are never lacking. There are and always will be enough men who are curious to see how one man can kill another."

"Au revoir, Roland. Observe, I do not say farewell, but au revoir!"

"Yes, my dear general," replied the young man, in a voice that revealed some emotion, "I understand, and I thank you."

"Promise that you will send me word as soon as the affair is over, or that you will get some one to write if you are disabled."

"Oh, don't worry, general. You will have a letter from me personally in less than four days," replied Roland, adding, in a tone of profound bitterness: "Have you not perceived that I am protected by a fatality which prevents me from dying?"

"Roland!" exclaimed the general in a severe tone, "Again!"

"Nothing, nothing," said the young man, shaking his head and a.s.suming an expression of careless gayety which must have been habitual with him before the occurrence of that unknown misfortune which oppressed his youth with this longing for death.