第25章

"Conduct him out of the Russian dominions, with a charge never to return, on pain of perpetual imprisonment.His last words were: 'Dagobert, I entrust to thee my wife and child!'--for it wanted yet some months of the time when you were to be born.Well, notwithstanding that, they exiled your mother to Siberia; it was an opportunity to get rid of her; she did too much good at Warsaw, and they feared her accordingly.Not content with banishing her, they confiscated all her property; the only favor she could obtain was, that I should accompany her, and, had it not been for Jovial, whom the general had given to me, she would have had to make the journey on foot.It was thus, with her on horseback, and I leading her as I lead you, my children, that we arrived at the poverty-stricken village, where, three months after, you poor little things were born!"

"And our father?"

"It was impossible for him to return to Russia; impossible for your mother to think of flight, with two children; impossible for the general to write to her, as he knew not where she was."

"So, since that time, you have had no news of him?"

"Yes, my children--once we had news."

"And by whom?"

After a moment's silence, Dagobert resumed with a singular expression of countenance: "By whom?--by one who is not like other men.Yes--that you may understand me better, I will relate to you an extraordinary adventure, which happened to your father during his last French campaign.

He had been ordered by the Emperor to carry a battery, which was playing heavily on our army; after several unsuccessful efforts, the general put himself at the head of a regiment of cuirassiers, and charged the battery, intending, as was his custom, to cut down the men at their guns.

He was on horseback, just before the mouth of a cannon, where all the artillerymen had been either killed or wounded, when one of them still found strength to raise himself upon one knee, and to apply the lighted match to the touchhole--and that when your father was about ten paces in front of the loaded piece."

"Oh! what a peril for our father!"

"Never, he told me, had he run such imminent danger for he saw the artilleryman apply the match, and the gun go off--but, at the very nick, a man of tall stature, dressed as a peasant, and whom he had not before remarked, threw himself in front of the cannon."

"Unfortunate creature! what a horrible death!"

"Yes," said Dagobert, thoughtfully; "it should have been so.He ought by rights to have been blown into a thousand pieces.But no--nothing of the kind!"

"What do you tell us?"

"What the general told me.'At the moment when the gun went off,' as he often repeated to me, 'I shut my eyes by an involuntary movement, that I might not see the mutilated body of the poor wretch who had sacrificed himself in my place.When I again opened them, the first thing I saw in the midst of the smoke, was the tall figure of this man, standing erect and calm on the same spot, and casting a sad mild look on the artilleryman, who, with one knee on the ground, and his body thrown backward, gazed on him in as much terror as if he had been the devil.

Afterwards, I lost sight of this man in the tumult,' added your father."

"Bless me Dagobert! how can this be possible?"

"That is just what I said to the general.He answered me that he had never been able to explain to himself this event, which seemed as incredible as it was true.Moreover, your father must have been greatly struck with the countenance of this man, who appeared, he said, about thirty years of age--for he remarked, that his extremely black eyebrows were joined together, and formed, as it were, one line from temple to temple, so that he seemed to have a black streak across his forehead.

Remember this, my children; you will soon see why."

"Oh, Dagobert! we shall not forget it," said the orphans, growing more and more astonished as he proceeded.

"Is it not strange--this man with a black seam on his forehead?"

"Well, you shall hear.The general had, as I told you, been left for dead at Waterloo.During the night which he passed on the field of battle, in a sort of delirium brought on by the fever of his wounds, he saw, or fancied he saw, this same man bending over him, with a look of great mildness and deep melancholy, stanching his wounds, and using every effort to revive him.But as your father, whose senses were still wandering, repulsed his kindness saying, that after such a defeat, it only remained to die--it appeared as if this man replied to him; 'You must live for Eva!' meaning your mother, whom the general had left at Warsaw, to join the Emperor, and make this campaign of France."

"How strange, Dagobert!--And since then, did our father never see this man?"

"Yes, he saw him--for it was he who brought news of the general to your poor mother."

"When was that? We never heard of it."

"You remember that, on the day your mother died, you went to the pine-

forest with old Fedora?"

"Yes," answered Rose, mournfully; "to fetch some heath, of which our mother was so fond."

"Poor mother!" added Blanche; "she appeared so well that morning, that we could not dream of the calamity which awaited us before night."