shoulders, and said:
"Courage, Eustache Lagroin. It is not forty Prussians, but one rogue!
Crush him! Down with the pretender!"

So, with a defiant light in his eye, he came on, the old uniform sagging
loosely on the shrunken body, which yet was soldier-like from head to
foot. Years of camp and discipline and battle and endurance were in the
whole bearing of the man. He was no more of Pontiac and this simple life
than was Valmond himself.

So they neared each other, the challenger and the challenged, the
champion and the invader, and quickly the village emptied itself out to
see.

When Valmond came so close that he could observe every detail of the
old man's uniform, he suddenly reined in his horse, drew him back on
his haunches with his left hand, and with his right saluted--not the
old sergeant, but the coat of the Old Guard, to which his eyes were
directed. Mechanically the hand of the sergeant went to his cap, then,
starting forward with an angry movement, he seemed as though he would
attack Valmond.

Valmond sat very still, his right hand thrust in his bosom, his forehead
bent, his eyes calmly, resolutely, yet distantly, looking at the
sergeant, who grew suddenly still also, while the people watched and
wondered.

As Valmond looked, a soft light passed across his face, relieving its
theatrical firmness, the half-contemptuous curl of his lip. He knew well
enough that this event would make or unmake him in Pontiac. He became
also aware that a carriage had driven up among the villagers, and had
stopped; and though he did not look directly, he felt that it was Madame
Chalice. This soft look on his face was not all assumed; for the ancient
uniform of the sergeant touched something in him, the true comedian, or
the true Napoleon, and it seemed as if he might dismount and take the
old soldier in his arms.

He set his horse on a little, and paused again, with not more than
fifteen feet between them. The sergeant's brain was going round like a
top. It was not he that challenged after all.

"Soldier of the Old Guard," cried Valmond, in a clear, ringing voice,
"how far is it to Friedland?"

Like a machine the veteran's hand again went up to his cap, and he
answered:

"To Friedland--the width of a ditch!"

His voice shook as he said it, and the world to him was all a muddle
then; for Napoleon the Great had asked a private this question after
that battle on the Alle, when Berningsen, the Russian, threw away an
a