St. Eustache, drawing, a long breath, "as the
colonel and I were charging side by side, cutting right and left,
separated from our men by the superior speed of our horses, a Russian
officer wheeled and shot the colonel from his saddle."

"That was how it happened, Lioncourt," said the emperor. "Now go on.
Afterwards----"

"When I came to my senses, sire," resumed Lioncourt, gloomily, "I
found myself in the hands of some Austrian peasants. I had been
plundered of my epaulets and uniform, and they took me for a common
soldier. But they carried me to their cottage, and dressed my wound,
and eventually I got well."

"But where were you wounded, colonel?" asked the emperor.

"A pistol ball had entered behind my left shoulder, and came out by my
collar bone."

"_Behind_ your left shoulder!" cried Napoleon. "And yet you were
facing the enemy. How was that?"

"Because," said the colonel, sternly, "a Frenchman, a soldier, an
officer, a disappointed rival, took that opportunity of assassinating
me, and shot me with his own hostler pistol."

"His name!" shouted the emperor, quivering with passion, "his name; do
you know him?"

"Well.--It was Lieutenant Colonel St. Eustache!"

All eyes were turned on St. Eustache. His knees knocked together, his
eyes were fixed, cold drops of perspiration stood on his forehead. But
in all that circle of indignant eyes, the detected criminal saw only
the eagle orbs of the emperor, that pierced to his very soul.

"Is this charge true?" asked Napoleon, quickly, quivering with one of
his tremendous tornadoes of passion.

St. Eustache could not answer; but he nodded his head.

"Your sword!" cried the emperor.

Mechanically the criminal drew his sabre; he had thrown off his
domino, and now stood revealed in the uniform he disgraced, and
offered the hilt to the emperor. Napoleon clutched it, and snapped the
blade under foot. Then, tearing off his epaulets, he threw them on the
floor, stamped on them, and beckoning to an officer who stood by,
gasped out,--

"A guard, a guard!"

In a few minutes the tramp of armed men was heard in the saloon, and
the wretched culprit was removed.

"_General_ Lioncourt," said the emperor to his recovered officer,
"your new commission shall be made out to-morrow. In the mean while
the lovely Leonide shall teach you to forget your trials."

The assemblage broke up. Lioncourt, his wife, and her faithful brother
retired to their now happy home.

The next