I--
We were two lions littered in one day,
But I the elder.'"

CHAPTER V. ROLAND

The return was silent and mournful; it seemed that with the hopes of
death Roland's gayety had disappeared.

The catastrophe of which he had been the author played perhaps a part
in his taciturnity. But let us hasten to say that in battle, and more
especially during the last campaign against the Arabs, Roland had been
too frequently obliged to jump his horse over the bodies of his victims
to be so deeply impressed by the death of an unknown man.

His sadness was, due to some other cause; probably that which he
confided to Sir John. Disappointment over his own lost chance of death,
rather than that other's decease, occasioned this regret.

On their return to the Hotel du Palais-Royal, Sir John mounted to his
room with his pistols, the sight of which might have excited something
like remorse in Roland's breast. Then he rejoined the young officer and
returned the three letters which had been intrusted to him.

He found Roland leaning pensively on a table. Without saying a word the
Englishman laid the three letters before him. The young man cast his
eyes over the addresses, took the one destined for his mother, unsealed
it and read it over. As he read, great tears rolled down his cheeks. Sir
John gazed wonderingly at this new phase of Roland's character. He had
thought everything possible to this many-sided nature except those tears
which fell silently from his eyes.

Shaking his head and paying not the least attention to Sir John's
presence, Roland murmured:

"Poor mother! she would have wept. Perhaps it is better so. Mothers were
not made to weep for their children!"

He tore up the letters he had written to his mother, his sister, and
General Bonaparte, mechanically burning the fragments with the utmost
care. Then ringing for the chambermaid, he asked:

"When must my letters be in the post?"

"Half-past six," replied she. "You have only a few minutes more."

"Just wait then."

And taking a pen he wrote:

My DEAR GENERAL--It is as I told you; I am living and he is
dead. You must admit that this seems like a wager. Devotion
to death.

Your Paladin

ROLAND.

Then he sealed the letter, addressed it to General Bonaparte, Rue de la
Victoire, Paris, and handed it to the chambermaid, bidding her lose no
time in posting it. Then only did he seem to notice Sir John, and held
out his hand to him.

"You hav