up."

"I can't help that," answered the soldier, laying down his musket and
tightening the straps of his cross-belts. "Captain, report Private
Dubois for insubordination and breach of discipline. I'm going out to
bring in the Colonel."

And he stepped forth unflinchingly into the deadly space beyond.

They saw him approach the spot where the Colonel lay; they saw him bend
over the fallen man, shielding him from the shot with his own body. Then
he was seen to stagger suddenly, as if from a blow; but the next moment
he had the Colonel in his arms, and was struggling back over the
shot-torn ground, through the dying and the dead. Twice he stopped
short, as if unable to go farther; but on he came again, and had just
laid his officer gently down inside the battery, when, with his
comrades' shout of welcome still ringing in his ears, he fell fainting
to the earth, covered with blood.

* * * * *

By the next morning Colonel Lasalle had recovered sufficiently to amaze
the whole regiment by putting under arrest the man who had saved his
life; but the moment it was done, the Colonel mounted his horse, and
rode off to head-quarters at full gallop. In about an hour he was seen
coming back again, side by side with a short, square-built man in a gray
coat and cocked hat, at sight of whom the soldiers burst into deafening
cheers, for he was no other than the Emperor Napoleon.

"Let me see this fellow," said Napoleon, sternly; and two grenadiers led
forward Pierre Dubois, so weak from his wounds that he could hardly
stand.

"So, fellow, thou hast dared to disobey orders, ha?" cried the Emperor,
in his harshest tones.

"I have, sire. And if it were to be done again, I'd do it."

"And what if we were to shoot thee for insubordination?"

"My life is your Majesty's, now as always," answered the grenadier,
boldly. "And if I must choose between dying myself and leaving my
Colonel to die, the old regiment can better spare a common fellow like
me than a brave officer like him."

A sudden spasm shook the old Colonel's iron face as he listened, and
even Napoleon's stern gray eyes softened as few men had ever seen them
soften yet.

"Thou'rt wrong _there_," said he, "for I would not give a 'common
fellow' of thy sort for twenty Colonels, were every one of them as good
as my old Lasalle here. Take this, _Sergeant_ Dubois"--and he fastened
his own cross of the Legion of Honor to Pierre's breast. "I warr