第27章

EXTRACTS FROM GENERAL SIMON'S DIARY.

Bivouac on the Mountains of Avers February the 20th, 1830.

"Each time I add some pages to this journal, written now in the heart of India, where the fortune of my wandering and proscribed existence has thrown me--a journal which, alas! my beloved Eva, you may never read--I experience a sweet, yet painful emotion; for, although to converse thus with you is a consolation, it brings back the bitter thought that I am unable to see or speak to you.

"Still, if these pages should ever meet your eyes, your generous heart will throb at the name of the intrepid being, to whom I am this day indebted for my life, and to whom I may thus perhaps owe the happiness of seeing you again--you and my child--for of course our child lives.Yes, it must be--for else, poor wife, what an existence would be yours amid the horrors of exile! Dear soul! he must now be fourteen.Whom does he resemble? Is he like you? Has he your large and beautiful blue eyes?--

Madman that I am! how many times, in this long day-book, have I already asked the same idle question, to which you can return no answer!--How many times shall I continue to ask it?--But you will teach our child to speak and love the somewhat savage name of Djalma."

"Djalma!" said Rose, as with moist eyes she left off reading.

"Djalma!" repeated Blanche, who shared the emotion of her sister."Oh, we shall never forget that name."

"And you will do well, my children; for it seems to be the name of a famous soldier, though a very young one.But go on, my little Rose!"

"I have told you in the preceding pages, my dear Eva, of the two glorious days we had this month.The troops of my old friend, the prince, which daily make fresh advances in European discipline, have performed wonders.

We have beaten the English, and obliged them to abandon a portion of this unhappy country, which they had invaded in contempt of all the rights of justice, and which they continue to ravage without mercy, for, in these parts, warfare is another name for treachery, pillage, and massacre.

This morning, after a toilsome march through a rocky and mountainous district, we received information from our scouts, that the enemy had been reinforced, and was preparing to act on the offensive; and, as we were separated from them by a distance of a few leagues only, an engagement became inevitable.My old friend the prince, the father of my deliverer, was impatient to march to the attack.The action began about three o'clock; it was very bloody and furious.Seeing that our men wavered for a moment, for they were inferior in number, and the English reinforcements consisted of fresh troops, I charged at the head of our weak reserve of cavalry.The old prince was in the centre, fighting, as he always fights, intrepidly; his son, Djalma, scarcely eighteen, as brave as his father, did not leave my side.In the hottest part of the engagement, my horse was killed under me, and rolling over into a ravine, along the edge of which I was riding, I found myself so awkwardly entangled beneath him, that for an instant I thought my thigh was broken."

"Poor father!" said Blanche.

"This time, happily, nothing more dangerous ensued thanks to Djalma! You see, Dagobert," added Rose, "that I remember the name." And she continued to read, "The English thought--and a very flattering opinion it was--that, if they could kill me, they would make short work of the prince's army.So a Sepoy officer, with five or six irregulars--cowardly, ferocious plunderers--seeing me roll down the ravine, threw themselves into it to despatch me.Surrounded by fire and smoke, and carried away by their ardor, our mountaineers had not seen me fall; but Djalma never left me.

He leaped into the ravine to my assistance, and his cool intrepidity saved my life.He had held the fire of his double-barrelled carbine;

with one load, he killed the officer on the spot; with the other he broke the arm of an irregular, who had already pierced my left hand with his bayonet.But do not be alarmed, dear Eva; it is nothing--only a scratch."

"Wounded--again wounded--alas!" cried Blanche, clasping her hands together, and interrupting her sister.

"Take courage!" said Dagobert: "I dare say it was only a scratch, as the general calls it.Formerly, he used to call wounds, which did not disable a man from fighting, blank wounds.There was no one like him for such sayings."

"Djalma, seeing me wounded," resumed Rose, wiping her eyes, "made use of his heavy carbine as a club, and drove back the soldiers.At that instant, I perceived a new assailant, who, sheltered behind a clump of bamboos which commanded the ravine, slowly lowered his long gun, placed the barrel between two branches, and took deliberate aim at Djalma.

Before my shouts could apprise him of his danger, the brave youth had received a ball in his breast.Feeling himself hit, he fell bark involuntarily two paces, and dropped upon one knee: but he still remained firm, endeavoring to cover me with his body.You may conceive my rage and despair, whilst all my efforts to disengage myself were paralyzed by the excruciating pain in my thigh.Powerless and disarmed, I witnessed for some moments this unequal struggle.

"Djalma was losing blood rapidly; his strength of arm began to fail him;

already one of the irregulars, inciting his comrades with his voice, drew from his belt a huge, heavy kind of bill-hook, when a dozen of our mountaineers made their appearance, borne towards the spot by the irresistible current of the battle.Djalma was rescued in his turn, I was released, and, in a quarter of an hour, I was able to mount a horse.

The fortune of the day is ours, though with severe loss; but the fires of the English camp are still visible, and to-morrow the conflict will be decisive.Thus, my beloved Eva, I owe my life to this youth.Happily, his wound occasions us no uneasiness; the ball only glanced along the ribs in a slanting direction."

"The brave boy might have said: "'A blank wound,' like the general,"

observed Dagobert.