s were in that village
over there where the infernal clodhoppers--damn their false royalist
hearts--looked remarkably cross-eyed at three unassuming military men.
For the present he should only ask for the name of General D'Hubert's
friends.

"What friends?" said the astonished General D'Hubert, completely off the
track. "I am staying with my brother-in-law over there."

"Well, he will do for one," suggested the chipped veteran.

"We're the friends of General Feraud," interjected the other, who had
kept silent till then, only glowering with his one eye at the man who
had never loved the emperor. That was something to look at. For even
the gold-laced Judases who had sold him to the English, the marshals and
princes, had loved him at some time or other. But this man had _never_
loved the emperor. General Feraud had said so distinctly.

General D'Hubert felt a sort of inward blow in his chest. For an
infinitesimal fraction of a second it was as if the spinning of the
earth had become perceptible with an awful, slight rustle in the eternal
stillness of space. But that was the noise of the blood in his ears and
passed off at once. Involuntarily he murmured:

"Feraud! I had forgotten his existence."

"He's existing at present, very uncomfortably it is true, in the
infamous inn of that nest of savages up there," said the one-eyed
cuirassier drily. "We arrived in your parts an hour ago on post horses.
He's awaiting our return with impatience. There is hurry, you know. The
general has broken the ministerial order of sojourn to obtain from you
the satisfaction he's entitled to by the laws of honour, and naturally
he's anxious to have it all over before the _gendarmerie_ gets the
scent."

The other elucidated the idea a little further.

"Get back on the quiet--you understand? Phitt! No one the wiser. We
have broken out, too. Your friend the king would be glad to cut off our
scurvy pittances at the first chance. It's a risk. But honour before
everything."

General D'Hubert had recovered his power of speech.

"So you come like this along the road to invite me to a throat-cutting
match with that--that..." A laughing sort of rage took possession of
him.

"Ha! ha! ha! ha!"

His fists on his hips, he roared without restraint while they stood
before him lank and straight, as unexpected as though they had been shot
up with a snap through a trapdoor in the ground. Only four-and-twenty
months ago the masters of Europe, they