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He was like one who, occupied with some great matter, passed through the usual affairs of life with a distant eye. Immediately he handed me a letter, saying: "M'sieu', I give my word to hand you this in a day or a year, as I am able. I get your message to me this morning, and then I come to care for Jean Labrouk, and so I find you here, and I give the letter. It come to me last night."
"Poor devil," thought I to myself, "there is some one whom his death will hurt. He must not die alone. He was no enemy of mine." I went back, and, getting from the horse, stooped to him, lifted up his head, and found that he was not dead. I spoke in his ear. He moaned, and his eyes opened. "What is your name?" said I. "Jean Labrouk," he whispered. Now I remembered him.
"Poor devil," thought I to myself, "there is some one whom his death will hurt. He must not die alone. He was no enemy of mine." I went back, and, getting from the horse, stooped to him, lifted up his head, and found that he was not dead. I spoke in his ear. He moaned, and his eyes opened. "What is your name?" said I. "Jean Labrouk," he whispered. Now I remembered him.
He reached and put the tumbler on a shelf, then turned and opened the door, his face all altered to a grimness. "Attend here, Labrouk!" he called; and on the soldier coming, he blurted out in scorn, "Here's this English captain can't go to supper without Voban's shears to snip him. Go fetch him, for I'd rather hear a calf in a barn-yard than this whing-whanging for 'M'sieu' Voban!"
Did Labrouk mean that the countersign was "Jesu," or was that word the broken prayer of his soul as it hurried forth? So strange a countersign I had never heard, and yet it might be used in this Catholic country. I rode on, tossed about in my mind. So much hung on this. If I could not give the countersign, I should have to fight my way back again the road I came. But I must try my luck.
She turned round, and went and sat down beside the old man, looked into his face for a minute silently, and then said, "Grandfather, Jean is dead; our Jean is dead." The old man peered at her for a moment, then broke into a strange laugh, which had in it the reflection of a distant misery, and said, "Our little Jean, our little Jean Labrouk! Ha! ha!
"Jean," he said, looking at the grave, "Jean Labrouk, a man dies well that dies with his gaiters on, aho!... What have you said for Jean Labrouk, m'sieu'?" he added to the priest. The priest stared at him, as though he had presumed. "Well?" said Gabord. "Well?" The priest answered nothing, but prepared to go, whispering a word of comfort to the poor wife.
Presently he seemed to note something in the woman's eyes, for he spoke almost sharply to her: "Jean Labrouk was honest man, and kept faith with comrades." "And I keep faith too, comrade," was the answer. "Gabord's a brute to doubt you," he rejoined quickly, and he drew from his pocket a piece of gold, and made her take it, though she much resisted. Meanwhile my mind was made up.
"Is Jean Labrouk with Bougainville yet?" "He's done with Bougainville; he's dead," I answered. "Dead! dead!" said he, a sort of grin playing on his face. I made a shot at a venture. "But you're to pay his wife Babette the ten francs and the leg of mutton in twenty-four hours, or his ghost will follow you. Swallow that, pudding-head!
An hour after this I was marching, with two other men and Gabord, to the Convent of the Ursulines, dressed in the ordinary costume of a French soldier, got from the wife of Jean Labrouk. In manner and speech though I was somewhat dull, my fellows thought, I was enough like a peasant soldier to deceive them, and my French was more fluent than their own.
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