d for a great military reputation, I would give
another ten years of my life.' 'I accept them,' Juba replied; 'I take
them now; don't forget it.''

At this part of his story he stopped again, and, observing the trouble
and hesitation visible in my every feature, he said:

'I warned you beforehand, young man, that you could not believe me; this
seems a dream, a chimera to you!... and to me, too!... and yet the
grades and the honors I obtained were no illusions; those soldiers I led
to the cannon's mouth, those redoubts stormed, those flags won, those
victories with which all France has rung ... all that was my work ...
all that glory was mine.'...

While he strode up and down the room, and spoke with this warmth and
enthusiasm, surprise chilled my blood, and I said to myself, 'Who can
this gentleman be?... Is he Coligny?... Richelieu?... the Marshal
Saxe?'...

From this state of excitement he had fallen into great depression, and
coming close to me, he said to me, with a sombre air:

'Juba spoke truly; and after a short time had passed away, disgusted
with this vain bubble of military glory, I longed for the only thing
real and satisfactory and permanent in this world; and when, at the cost
of five or six years of life, I desired gold and wealth, Juba gave them
too.... Yes, my young friend, yes, I have seen fortune surpass all my
desires; I became the lord of estates, of forests, of chateaux. Up to
this morning they were all mine; if you don't believe me, if you don't
believe Juba ... wait ... wait ... he is coming ... and you will see for
yourself, with your own eyes, that what confounds your reason and mine,
is unhappily but too real.'

He then walked toward the mantlepiece, looked at the clock, exhibited
great alarm, and said to me in a whisper:

'This morning at daybreak I felt so depressed and weak I could scarcely
get up. I rang for my servant. Juba came. 'What is the matter with me
this morning?' I asked him. 'Master, nothing more than natural. The hour
approaches, the moment draws near!' 'What hour? What moment?' 'Don't you
remember? Heaven allotted sixty years as the term of your existence. You
were thirty when I began to obey you!' 'Juba,' said I, seriously
alarmed, 'are you in earnest?' 'Yes, master; in five years you have
dissipated in glory twenty-five years of life. You gave them to me, they
belong to me; and those years you bartered away shall now be added to
the days I have to live.' 'What, was th