rap, and I, despairing,
spurring on to die at their head--have I your attention?--just at that
moment there appeared between the ravine and the road ahead a man.
He wore an eye-glass; he seemed an unconcerned spectator of our
movements--so does the untrained, unthinking eye look out upon destiny!
Not far away was a wagon, in it a man. Wagon bisecting our course from a
cross-road--"

He drew a line on the table-cloth with the carvingknife, and the Notary
said: "Yes, yes, the concession road."

"So, Messieurs. There were we, a battalion and a fife-and-drum band;
there was the man with the eyeglass, the indifferent spectator, yet
the engine of fate; there was the wagon, a mottled horse, and a man
driving--catch it? The mottled horse took fright at our band, which at
that instant strikes up 'The Chevalier Drew his Sabre'. He shies from
the road with a leap, the man falls backwards into the wagon, and the
reins drop. The horse dashes from the road into the open, and rushes on
to the ravine. What good now to stop the fifes and drums-follow me?
What can we, an armed force, bandoleered, knapsacked, sworded, rifled,
impetuous, brave, what can we do before this tragedy? The man in the
wagon senseless, the flying horse, the ravine, death! How futile the
power of man--'stand what I mean?"

"Why didn't your battalion shoot the horse?" said the Seigneur drily,
taking a pinch of snuff. "Monsieur," said the Colonel, "see the irony,
the implacable irony of fate--we had only blank cartridge! But see you,
here was this one despised man with an eye-glass, a tailor--takes nine
tailors to make a man!--between the ravine and the galloping tragedy.
His spirit arrayed itself like an army with banners, prepared to wrestle
with death as Jacob wrestled with his shadow all the night 'sieur le
Cure!"

The Cure bowed; the Notary shook back his oiled locks in excitement.

"Awoke a whole man--nine-ninths, as in Adam--in the obscure soul of the
tailor, and, rushing forward, he seized the mottled horse by the bridle
as he galloped upon the chasm: The horse dragged him on--dragged him
on--on--on. We, an army, so to speak, stood and watched the Tailor and
the Tragedy! All seemed lost, but, by the decree of fate--"

"The will of God," said the Cure softly.

"By the great decree, the man was able to stop the horse, not a
half-dozen feet from the ravine. The horse and the insensible driver
were spared death--death. So, Messieurs, does bravery come fro