reckoning for everybody, and when it arrives,
I promise you that my friends will be remembered as well as my enemies.'

'Sire,' said I, for I had had time for thought as well as he, 'if your
plans about these papers have been carried to the ears of your enemies,
I trust you do not think that it was owing to any indiscretion upon the
part of myself or of my comrades.'

'It would be hardly reasonable for me to do so,' he answered, 'seeing
that this plot was hatched in Paris, and that you only had your orders a
few hours ago.'

'Then how----?'

'Enough,' he cried, sternly. 'You take an undue advantage of your
position.'

That was always the way with the Emperor. He would chat with you as with
a friend and a brother, and then when he had wiled you into forgetting
the gulf which lay between you, he would suddenly, with a word or with a
look, remind you that it was as impassable as ever. When I have fondled
my old hound until he has been encouraged to paw my knees, and I have
then thrust him down again, it has made me think of the Emperor and his
ways.

He reined his horse round, and I followed him in silence and with a
heavy heart. But when he spoke again his words were enough to drive all
thought of myself out of my mind.

'I could not sleep until I knew how you had fared,' said he. 'I have
paid a price for my papers. There are not so many of my old soldiers
left that I can afford to lose two in one night.'

When he said 'two' it turned me cold.

'Colonel Despienne was shot, sire,' I stammered.

'And Captain Tremeau cut down. Had I been a few minutes earlier, I might
have saved him. The other escaped across the fields.'

I remembered that I had seen a horseman a moment before I had met the
Emperor. He had taken to the fields to avoid me, but if I had known, and
Violette been unwounded, the old soldier would not have gone unavenged.
I was thinking sadly of his sword-play, and wondering whether it was his
stiffening wrist which had been fatal to him, when Napoleon spoke again.

'Yes, Brigadier,' said he, 'you are now the only man who will know where
these papers are concealed.'

It must have been imagination, my friends, but for an instant I may
confess that it seemed to me that there was a tone in the Emperor's
voice which was not altogether one of sorrow. But the dark thought had
hardly time to form itself in my mind before he let me see that I was
doing him an injustice.

'Yes, I have paid a price for my