"Good news for you, for you are going. But I shall be left behind as
usual. Yes; it is good news for you."

"And for France," cried Lory, with both hands outspread, as if to
indicate the glory that was awaiting them.

"For France," said the colonel, gravely, "it cannot fail to be bad. But
we must not think of that now."

"We shall never think of it," answered Lory. "This is Monday; there is a
boat for Marseilles to-night. I leave Bastia to-night, colonel."

"And I must get back there," said the colonel, holding out his hand.

He rode thoughtfully back by the shortest route through the Lancone
Defile, and, as he approached Bastia, from the heights behind the town he
saw the steamer that would convey Lory to France coming northward from
Bonifacio.

"Yes," he said; "he will leave Bastia to-night; and assuredly the good
God, or the devil, helps me at every turn of this affair."




CHAPTER XIII.


WAR.