He drew a line on the table-cloth with the carvingknife, and the Notary
said: "Yes, yes, the concession road."

"So, Messieurs. There were we, a battalion and a fife-and-drum band;
there was the man with the eyeglass, the indifferent spectator, yet the
engine of fate; there was the wagon, a mottled horse, and a man driving--
catch it? The mottled horse took fright at our band, which at that
instant strikes up 'The Chevalier Drew his Sabre'. He shies from the
road with a leap, the man falls backwards into the wagon, and the reins
drop. The horse dashes from the road into the open, and rushes on to the
ravine. What good now to stop the fifes and drums-follow me? What can
we, an armed force, bandoleered, knapsacked, sworded, rifled, impetuous,
brave, what can we do before this tragedy? The man in the wagon
senseless, the flying horse, the ravine, death! How futile the power of
man--'stand what I mean?"

"Why didn't your battalion shoot the horse?" said the Seigneur drily,
taking a pinch of snuff. "Monsieur," said the Colonel, "see the irony,
the implacable irony of fate--we had only blank cartridge! But see you,
here was this one despised man with an eye-glass, a tailor--takes nine
tailors to make a man!--between the ravine and the galloping tragedy.
His spirit arrayed itself like an army with banners, prepared to wrestle
with death as Jacob wrestled with his shadow all the night 'sieur le
Cure!"

The Cure bowed; the Notary shook back his oiled locks in excitement.

"Awoke a whole man--nine-ninths, as in Adam--in the obscure soul of the
tailor, and, rushing forward, he seized the mottled horse by the bridle