in; and several officers visited his
quarters to look at him; they went back disappointed. The cry was, "What
a miserable, melancholy dog! I expected to see a fine, dashing fellow."

The trenches neared the town. Colonel Dujardin's mine was far advanced;
the end of the chamber was within a few yards of the bastion. Of late,
the colonel had often visited this mine in person. He seemed a little
uneasy about something in that quarter; but no one knew what: he was a
silent man. The third evening, after he dismounted Long Tom, he received
private notice that an order was coming down from the commander-in-chief
to assault the bastion. He shrugged his shoulders, but said nothing.
That same night the colonel and one of his lieutenants stole out of the
trenches, and by the help of a pitch-dark, windy night, got under the
bastion unperceived, and crept round it, and made their observations,
and got safe back. About noon down came General Raimbaut.

"Well, colonel, you are to have your way at last. Your bastion is to
be stormed this afternoon previous to the general assault. Why, how is
this? you don't seem enchanted?"

"I am not."

"Why, it was you who pressed for the assault."

"At the right time, general, not the wrong. In five days I undertake to
blow that bastion into the air. To assault it now would be to waste our
men."

General Raimbaut thought this excess of caution a great piece
of perversity in Achilles. They were alone, and he said a little
peevishly,--

"Is not this to blow hot and cold on the same thing?"

"No, general," was the calm reply. "Not on the same thing. I blew hot
upon timorous counsels; I blow cold on rash ones. General, last night
Lieutenant Fleming and I were under that bastion; and all round it."

"Ah! my prudent colonel, I thought we should not talk long without your
coming out in your true light. If ever a man secretly enjoyed risking
his life, it is you."

"No, general," said Dujardin looking gloomily down; "I enjoy neither
that nor anything else. Live or die, it is all one to me; but to the
lives of my soldiers I am not indifferent, and never will be while I
live. My apparent rashness of last night was pure prudence."

Raimbaut's eye twinkled with suppressed irony. "No doubt!" said he; "no
doubt!"

The impassive colonel would not notice the other's irony; he went calmly
on:--

"I suspected something; I went to confute, or confirm that suspicion. I
confirmed it."

Rat! tat! tat!