The Whites and the Blues. Alexandre DumasЧитать онлайн книгу.
they may not die. We went to meet the body of Prussians who had come to take possession of the city; they were ten thousand in number, and we were eighteen hundred.
"A thousand of us remained upon the battlefield. In the three days that followed three hundred died of their wounds. Five hundred remained.
"All were equally guilty, but our adversaries were generous. They divided us into three classes: the first were to be shot; the second were to be hanged; the third escaped with their lives after having received fifty lashes.
"They had divided us according to our strength. Those who were the most severely wounded were to be shot; those who were slightly wounded were to be hanged; those who were well and sound were to receive fifty lashes. Thus they would preserve the memory all their lives of the chastisement deserved by every ungrateful wretch who refuses to throw himself into the open arms of Prussia.
"My dying father was shot. My brother, who had a broken thigh, was hanged. I, who had only a scratch on my shoulder, received fifty lashes.
"At the fortieth I fainted; but the officers were conscientious men, and, although I did not feel the blows, they completed the number, and then left me lying upon the place of punishment without paying any further attention to me. My sentence read that when I had received the fifty lashes I was free. The punishment had taken place in one of the courts of the citadel. When I recovered consciousness it was night; I saw around me a number of inanimate bodies that resembled corpses, but who were men who, like myself, had probably fainted. I found my clothing, but, with the exception of my shirt, I was not able to put them on my bleeding shoulders. I threw them over my arm and endeavored to locate myself. A light was burning a short distance from me; I thought it belonged to the guard at the gate and I made my way to it. The sentinel was at his wicket.
"'Your name?' he asked.
"I told him my name."
He consulted his list.
"'Here,' he said, 'is your passport.'
"I looked at it. It read, 'Good for the frontier.'
"'Then I cannot enter Dantzic?' I asked.
"'Not under pain of death.'
"I thought of my mother, bereaved of her husband and her sons; I uttered a sigh, committed her to God, and took up my march. I had no money, but fortunately in a secret fold of my pocketbook I had managed to save the note which Kosciusko had given me, and which I have shown you.
"I took my way through Custrin, Frankfort and Leipsic. As sailors are guided by the polar star so I looked to France, that beacon of liberty, and hastened toward it. Six weeks of hunger, fatigue, miseries, and humiliations were forgotten when I set foot in the holy land of liberty yesterday, all save the hope of vengeance. I threw myself upon my knees and blessed God that I was as strong as the crime of which I had been made the victim. In all your soldiers I saw brothers, not marching to the conquest of the world, but to the deliverance of the oppressed. A flag passed; I sprang toward it, asking permission of the officer to embrace this sacred emblem, the symbol of universal brotherhood. The officer hesitated.
"'Ah!' I cried, 'I am a Pole, and proscribed, and I have come nine hundred miles to join you. This flag is mine also. I have the right to kiss it, to press it to my heart, and to put my lips to it.'
"And I took it almost by force, and kissed it, saying: 'Be always pure, brilliant, and glorious, flag of the conquerors of the Bastile, flag of Valmy, of Jemmapes, and of Bercheim.'
"Oh! general, for a moment I felt no more fatigue; I forgot my shoulders so cruelly lacerated beneath the lash, my brother suspended to the gibbet, my father shot. I forgot all, even vengeance.
"To-day I come to you. I am trained in all things pertaining to science; I speak five languages equally well; I can pass for German, Russian, English, or French. I can penetrate in any disguise into towns, fortresses and headquarters; I can give news of everything, for I can draw plans. No material obstacle can stop me; ten times, when I was a child, I swam across the Vistula. In short, I am no longer a man, I am a thing; I call myself no longer Stephan Moinjki, but Vengeance!"
"And do you wish to be a spy?"
"Do you call that man a spy who is fearless, and who by his intelligence can do the most harm to the enemy?"
"Yes."
"Then I wish to be a spy."
"Do you know that you risk being shot if you are caught?"
"Like my father."
"Or hanged?"
"Like my brother."
"The least that can happen to you is to be whipped. Do you know that?"
With a rapid movement Stephan loosened his coat, drew his arm out of the sleeve, turned down his shirt, and showed his back covered with blue welts.
"As I have been," he answered, laughing.
"Remember that I offer you a place in my army as a lieutenant, or as an interpreter."
"And you, citizen-general, must remember that I, finding myself unworthy, have refused. In condemning me they have put me outside the pale of manhood. Well, I will strike them secretly."
"Very well. And now, what do you want?"
"Some money to buy other clothes, and your orders."
Pichegru stretched out his hand and took a folio of assignats and a pair of scissors from a chair. It was what he received every month for his expenses at the seat of war. The month was not more than half gone, but the folio was nearly used up.
He cut three days' pay, amounting to four hundred and fifty francs, from it and gave them to the spy.
"Buy some clothes with that," he said.
"That is too much: I shall only want peasant's clothes," said the Pole.
"Perhaps to-morrow you will be obliged to buy another disguise."
"Very well. And now your orders?"
"Listen carefully to what I have to say," said Pichegru, laying his hand on the young man's shoulder.
The young man listened with his eyes fastened upon Pichegru; it seemed as if he were trying to see as well as to hear the words.
"I am advised," resumed Pichegru, "that the army of the Moselle, commanded by Hoche, is about to join mine. This union accomplished, we shall attack Woerth, Froeschwiller and Reichsoffen. Well, I must know the number of men and cannon that defend these places as well as the best points of attack. You will be aided by the hatred that our peasants and the Alsatian bourgeois bear the Prussians."
"Shall I bring you the information here? Will you wait for it, or will you start to meet the army of the Moselle?"
"In three or four days you will probably hear firing in the direction of Marschwilier, Dawendorff, or Uberack; you may join me wherever I am."
Just then the door opened and a young man, about twenty-five or six, wearing a colonel's uniform, entered.
From his light hair and mustache, and ruddy complexion, it was plain to be seen that he was one of the many Irishmen who had taken service in France now that she was likely to go to war with England.
"Ah! is it you, my dear Macdonald," said Pichegru, making a sign to the young man, "I was just going to send for you; here is one of your Scotch or English countrymen."
"Neither the English nor the Scotch are my countrymen, general," said Macdonald. "I am Irish."
"I beg your pardon, colonel," said Pichegru, laughing, "I did not mean to insult you, I only meant that he speaks nothing but English, and, as I do not know it very well, I want to know what he is saying."
"Nothing is easier," replied Macdonald. Then, addressing the young man, he put several questions to him, to which the other replied without an instant's hesitation.
"Has