"Because I'm interested in you."

"Well, Sir John, I am going to tell you the secret of the enigma,
something I have never done with any one before. For all my seeming
good health, I am suffering from a horrible aneurism that causes
me spasms of weakness and faintness so frequent as to shame even
a woman. I spend my life taking the most ridiculous precautions,
and yet Larrey warns me that I am liable to die any moment, as
the diseased artery in my breast may burst at the least exertion.
Judge for yourself how pleasant for a soldier! You can understand
that, once I understood my condition, I determined incontinently
to die with all the glory possible. Another more fortunate than I
would have succeeded a hundred times already. But I'm bewitched;
I am impervious alike to bullets and balls; even the swords seem
to fear to shatter themselves upon my skin. Yet I never miss an
opportunity; that you must see, after what occurred at dinner.
Well, we are going to fight. I'll expose myself like a maniac,
giving my adversary all the advantages, but it will avail me
nothing. Though he shoot at fifteen paces, or even ten or five,
at his very pistol' s point, he will miss me, or his pistol will
miss fire. And all this wonderful luck that some fine day when
I least expect it, I may die pulling on my boots! But hush I
here comes my adversary."

As he spoke the upper half of three people could be seen ascending
the same rough and rocky path that Roland and Sir John had followed,
growing larger as they approached. Roland counted them.

"Three!" he exclaimed. "Why three, when we are only two?"