I said these words slowly and deliberately, and giving them all the impressiveness I was able.
"Come this way, friend," said he, and, assisting me to arise, he led me a short distance off, and desired me to sit down on the steps in front of the altar railing. "Now, you may speak freely. I am the General Massena, and I have only to say, that if you really have intelligence of any value for me, you shall be liberally rewarded; but if you have not, and if the pretense be merely an effort to impose on one whose cares and anxieties are already hard to bear, it would be better that you had perished on sea than tried to attempt it."
There was a stern severity in the way he said this, which for a moment or two actually overpowered me. It was quite clear that he looked for some positive fact—some direct piece of information on which he might implicitly rely; and here was I now with nothing save the gossip of some English lieutenants—the idle talk of inexperienced young officers. I was silent. From the bottom of my heart I wished that I had never reached the shore, to stand in a position of such humiliation as this.
"So, then, my caution was not unneeded," said the general, as he bent his heavy brows upon me. "Now, sir, there is but one amende you can make for this; tell me, frankly, have others sent you on this errand, or is the scheme entirely of your own devising? Is this an English plot, or is there a Bourbon element in it?"
"Neither one nor the other," said I, boldly; for indignation at last gave me courage. "I hazarded my life to tell you what I overheard among the officers of the fleet yonder; you may hold their judgment cheap; you may not think their counsels worth the pains of listening to; but I could form no opinion of this, and only thought, If these tidings could reach him he might profit by them."
"And what are they?" asked he, bluntly.
"They said, that your force was wasting away by famine and disease; that your supplies could not hold out above a fortnight; that your granaries were empty, and your hospitals filled."
"They scarcely wanted the gift of second sight to see this," said he, bitterly. "A garrison in close siege for four months may be suspected of as much."
"Yes; but they said that as Soult's force fell back upon the city your position would be rendered worse."
"Fell back from where?" asked he, with a searching look at me.
"As I understood, from the Apennines," replied I, growing more confident as I saw that he became more attentive. "If I understood them aright, Soult held a position called the 'Monte Faccio.' Is there such a name?"
"Go on," said he, with a nod of assent.
"That this could not long be tenable without gaining the highest fortified point of the mountain. The 'Monte Creto,' they named it."
"The attempt on which has failed!" said Massena, as if carried away by the subject; "and Soult himself is a prisoner! Go on."
"They added, that now but one hope remained for this army."
"And what was that, sir," said he, fiercely. "What suggestion of cunning strategy did these sea wolves intimate?"
"To cut your way through the blockade, and join Suchet's corps, attacking the Austrians at the Monte Ratte, and by the sea road gaining the heights of Bochetta."
"Do these heroic spirits know the strength of that same Austrian corps?—did they tell you that it numbered fifty-four thousand bayonets?"
"They called them below forty thousand; and that now that Bonaparte was on his way through the Alps, perhaps by this, over the Mount Cenis—"
"What! did they say this? Is Bonaparte so near us?" cried he, placing a hand on either shoulder, as he stared me in the face.
"Yes; there is no doubt of that. The dispatch to Lord Keith brought the news a week ago, and there is no secret made about it in the fleet."
"Over Mount Cenis!" repeated he to himself. "Already in Italy!"
"Holding straight for Milan, Lord Keith thinks," added I.
"No, sir, straight for the Tuileries," cried Massena, sternly: and then, correcting himself suddenly, he burst into a forced laugh. I must confess that the speech puzzled me sorely at the time, but I lived to learn its meaning, and many a time have I wondered at the shrewd foresight which even then read the ambitious character of the future emperor.
"Of this fact, then, you are quite certain?—Bonaparte is on his march hither?"
"I have heard it spoken of every day for the last week," replied I; "and it was in consequence of this that the English officers used to remark, if Massena but knew it he'd make a dash at them, and clear his way through at once."
"They said this, did they?" said he, in a low voice, and as if pondering over it.
"Yes; one and all agreed in thinking there could not be a doubt of the result."
"Where have you served, sir?" asked he, suddenly turning on me, and with a look that showed he was resolved to test the character of the witness.
"With Moreau, sir, on the Rhine and the Schwarzwald; in Ireland with Humbert."
"Your regiment?"
"The Ninth Hussars."
"The 'Tapageurs,'" said he, laughing. "I know them, and glad I am not to have their company here at this moment; you were a lieutenant?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, supposing that, on the faith of what you have told me, I was to follow the wise counsel of these gentlemen, would you like the alternative of gaining your promotion in the event of success, or being shot by a peloton if we fail."
"They seem sharp terms, sir," said I, smiling, "when it is remembered, that no individual efforts of mine can either promote one result or the other."
"Ay, but they can, sir," cried he, quickly. "If you should turn out to be an Austro-English spy; if these tidings be of a character to lead my troops into danger; if, in reliance on you, I should be led to compromise the honor and safety of a French army—your life, were it worth ten thousand times over your own value of it, would be a sorry recompense. Is this intelligible?"
"Far more intelligible than flattering," said I, laughing; for I saw that the best mode to treat him was by an imitation of his own frank and careless humor. "I have already risked that life you hold so cheaply, to convey this information, but I am still ready to accept the conditions you offer me, if, in the event of success, my name appear in the dispatch."
He again stared at me with his dark and piercing eyes; but I stood the glance with a calm conscience, and he seemed so to read it, for he said:
"Be it so. I will, meanwhile, test your prudence. Let nothing of this interview transpire; not a word of it among the officers and comrades you shall make acquaintance with. You shall serve on my own staff; go now, and recruit your strength for a couple of days, and then report yourself at head-quarters when ready for duty. Latrobe, look to the Lieutenant Tiernay; see that he wants for nothing, and let him have a horse and a uniform as soon as may be."
Captain Latrobe, the future General of Division, was then a young, gay officer of about five-and-twenty, very good looking, and full of life and spirits, a buoyancy which the terrible uncertainties of the siege could not repress.
"Our general talks nobly, Tiernay," said he, as he gave me his arm to assist me; "but you'll stare when I tell you that 'wanting for nothing' means, having four ounces of black bread, and ditto of blue cheese per diem; and as to a horse, if I possessed such an animal, I'd have given a dinner-party yesterday and eaten him. You look surprised, but when you see a little more of us here, you'll begin to think that prison rations in the fleet yonder were luxuries compared to what we have. No matter: you shall take share of my superabundance, and if I have little else to offer, I'll show you a view from my window, finer than any thing you ever looked on in your life, and with a sea-breeze that would be glorious if it didn't make one hungry."