THE PROMISED LAND.

"I do not ask that flowers should always spring beneath my feet."


Colonel Gilbert was not one of those visionaries who think that the lot
of the individual man is to be bettered by a change from, say, an empire
to a republic. Indeed, the late transformation from a republic to an
empire had made no difference to him, for he was neither a friend nor a
foe of the emperor. He had nothing in common with those soldiers of the
Second Empire who had won their spurs in the Tuileries, and owed
promotion to a woman's favouritism. He was, in a word, too good a soldier
to be a good courtier; and politics represented for him, as they do for
most wise men, an after-breakfast interest, and an edifying study of the
careers of a certain number of persons who mean to make themselves a name
in the easiest arena that is open to ambition.

The colonel read the newspapers because there was little else to do in
Bastia, and the local gossip "on tap," as it were, at the cafes and the
"Reunion des Officiers," had but a limited interest for him. He was,
however, at heart a gossip, and rode or walked through the streets of
Bastia with that leisurely air which seems to invite the passer-by to
stop and exchange something more than a formal salutation.

The days, indeed, were long enough; for his service often got the colonel
out of bed at dawn, and his work was frequently done before civilians
were awake. It thus happened that Colonel Gilbert was riding along the
coast-road from Brando to Bastia one morning before the sun had risen
very high above the heights of Elba. The day was so clear that not only
were the rocky islands of Gorgona and Capraja and Monte Cristo visible,