ldn't drink, and shade where their flesh was roasted. But
we made short work of the Mamelukes; and everybody else yielded at the
voice of Napoleon, who took possession of Upper and Lower Egypt, Arabia,
and even the capitals of kingdoms that were no more, where there were
thousands of statues and all the plagues of Egypt, more particularly
lizards--a mammoth of a country where everybody could take his acres of
land for as little as he pleased. Well, while Napoleon was busy with his
affairs inland--where he had it in his head to do fine things--the
English burned his fleet at Aboukir; for they were always looking about
them to annoy us. But Napoleon, who had the respect of the East and of
the West, whom the Pope called his son, and the cousin of Mohammed
called 'his dear father,' resolved to punish England, and get hold of
India in exchange for his fleet. He was just about to take us across the
Red Sea into Asia, a country where there are diamonds and gold to pay
the soldiers and palaces for bivouacs, when the Mahdi made a treaty with
the plague, and sent it down to hinder our victories. Halt! The army to
a man defiled at that parade; and few they were who came back on their
feet. Dying soldiers couldn't take Saint-Jean d'Acre, though they rushed
at it three times with generous and martial obstinacy. The Plague was
the strongest. No saying to that enemy, 'My good friend.' Every soldier
lay ill. Napoleon alone was fresh as a rose, and the whole army saw him
drinking in pestilence without its doing him a bit of harm.

"Ha! my friends! will you tell me that _that's_ in the nature of a mere
man?

"The Mamelukes, knowing we were all in the ambulances, thought they
could stop the way; but that sort of joke wouldn't do with Napoleon. So
he said to his demons, his veterans, those that had the toughest hide,
'Go, clear me the way.' Junot, a sabre of the first cut, and his
particular friend, took a thousand men, no more, and ripped up the army
of the pacha who had had the presumption to put himself in the way.
After that, we came back to headquarters at Cairo. Now, here's another
side of the story. Napoleon absent, France was letting herself be ruined
by the rulers in Paris, who kept back the pay of the soldiers of the
other armies, and their clothing, and their rations; left them to die
of hunger, and expected them to lay down the law to the universe
without taking any trouble to help them. Idiots! who amused themselves
by chatte