u have had no news of him?"

"Yes, my children--once we had news."

"And by whom?"

After a moment's silence, Dagobert resumed with a singular expression of
countenance: "By whom?--by one who is not like other men. Yes--that
you may understand me better, I will relate to you an extraordinary
adventure, which happened to your father during his last French
campaign. He had been ordered by the Emperor to carry a battery, which
was playing heavily on our army; after several unsuccessful efforts,
the general put himself at the head of a regiment of cuirassiers, and
charged the battery, intending, as was his custom, to cut down the men
at their guns. He was on horseback, just before the mouth of a cannon,
where all the artillerymen had been either killed or wounded, when one
of them still found strength to raise himself upon one knee, and to
apply the lighted match to the touchhole--and that when your father was
about ten paces in front of the loaded piece."

"Oh! what a peril for our father!"

"Never, he told me, had he run such imminent danger for he saw the
artilleryman apply the match, and the gun go off--but, at the very nick,
a man of tall stature, dressed as a peasant, and whom he had not before
remarked, threw himself in front of the cannon."

"Unfortunate creature! what a horrible death!"

"Yes," said Dagobert, thoughtfully; "it should have been so. He ought by
rights to have been blown into a thousand pieces. But no--nothing of the
kind!"

"What do you tell us?"

"What the general told me. 'At the moment when the gun went off,' as he
often repeated to me, 'I shut my eyes by an involuntary movement, that
I might not see the mutilated body of the poor wretch who had sacrificed
himself in my place. When I again opened them, the first thing I saw in
the midst of the smoke, was the tall figure of this man, standing
erect and calm on the same spot, and casting a sad mild look on the
artilleryman, who, with one knee on the ground, and his body thrown
backward, gazed on him in as much terror as if he had been the devil.
Afterwards, I lost sight of this man in the tumult,' added your father."

"Bless me Dagobert! how can this be possible?"

"That is just what I said to the general. He answered me that he had
never been able to explain to himself this event, which seemed as
incredible as it was true. Moreover, your father must have been greatly
struck with the countenance of this man, who appeared, he said, about