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Up above it was not Batista, the devoted ex-soldier, who opened the door, but a very young fellow to whom Pierre did not at first pay any attention. The little room was bare and light as on previous occasions, and from the broad curtainless window there was the superb view of Rome, Rome crushed that day beneath a leaden sky and steeped in shade of infinite mournfulness.
Following their conversation in the dining-car, the girl her name was Kay Parker had continued her luncheon, her mind busy with thoughts of this strange home-bound ex-soldier who had so signally challenged her attention. "There's breeding back of that man," the girl mused. "He's only a rancher's son from the San Gregorio; where did he acquire his drawing-room manners?"
Yet his eyes were sorrowful, and as the fingers of his right hand lay upon his knee they twitched as though they were longing to grasp something unseen. The ex-soldier frowned and snorted. For my own part, however, I felt troubled for, and sorry for, Vasili. Presently he rose, broke into a soft whistle, and moved away by the side of the stream.
An old, thick-set man with a white beard and intelligent eyes understood as quickly, and took every opportunity to put in an ironical joke, clearly wishing to show off. The ex-soldier seemed also to understand matters, but got mixed, being used to senseless soldiers' talk.
Peppin's party now numbered sixteen men from the Seven Rivers country, or twenty-eight in all. Doc Skurlock, Jack Middleton, and Charlie Bowdre were in the adjoining store building. At about noon of the third day, old Andy Boyle, ex-soldier of the British army, said, "We'll have to get a cannon and blow in the doors. I'll go up to the fort and steal a cannon."
Saddest of all, after Manöel Valdez, perhaps, was the wrecked visage of Pelle, whose own particular cafard had been leading him a merry dance the last few days. To Sidi-bel-Abbés, with a letter of introduction to the colonel, had come an old officer of the British army, a man of distinction. Pelle, as an Englishman and an ex-soldier, had been honoured by being appointed his guide.
Up above it was not Batista, the devoted ex-soldier, who opened the door, but a very young fellow to whom Pierre did not at first pay any attention. The little room was bare and light as on previous occasions, and from the broad curtainless window there was the superb view of Rome, Rome crushed that day beneath a leaden sky and steeped in shade of infinite mournfulness.
For the man who opened the door to him was well known to every agent of the Committee. He was an ex-soldier who had been crippled years ago by the loss of one arm, and had held the post of concierge in a house in the Ruelle du Paradis ever since. His name was Grosjean. He was very old, and nearly doubled up with rheumatism, had scarcely any hair on his head or flesh on his bones.
"But, in spite of all the devil could do, we drove them out; yes, and we would have done it if there had been ten times as many of them!" said the ex-soldier. "And were you ever on those peaks?" said the mistress of the house to her guest. "I was never there myself," answered the latter; "but my Manuel has been there a hundred times. Once he went there with an Englishman who wanted to see them.
Upon this the man with the Cossack forelock took a slice of bread which the ex-soldier cut from a loaf, with an onion and a pinch of salt. Then, as he regarded us with a pair of good-humoured eyes, he said, balancing his food on the palms of his hands: "There is a spot on the Sunzha, near here, where those fellows have a colony of their own. Yes, I myself have visited it.
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