Chapter XLV: More Revelations

Colonel Carron was constantly looking the boys up, and carrying them off to the best meals they ever got in that country. His Chief, Prince Napoleon, had gone down to Therapia with a touch of fever, and the Colonel was in charge of his quarters and saw to it that His Highness's cooks did not get rusty in his absence.

Over these delightful dinners in the leafy arbours which always marked the Prince's quarters, they all came to know one another very much better than they might have done under any ordinary circumstances.

And the burden of the Colonel's talk was chiefly regret that one or both of them had not taken his offer and joined him in the French service.

"Sorry I am to say it," he said one night, as they sat sipping coffee such as they got nowhere else, and smoking cigars such as their own pockets did not run to, "but your army is only a fancy toy--in the way it's run, I mean. Your men are the finest in the world, what there are of them; but England is not a soldierly nation, say what you like about it."

"What about the Peninsula, sir?--to say nothing of Waterloo!" murmured Jack, after a discreet took round.

"Oh, you can fight and win battles, just as you can do pretty nearly anything else you make up your minds to do--regardless of cost. But with us the army is a science--an exact science almost--and every single detail is worked out on the most scientific lines. You only need to look round you to see the difference. England is never ready because she is not by nature a fighting nation. Her army rusts along, and then when the sudden call comes you have got to brace up and win through--or muddle through--at any cost, and the cost is generally frightful. The men and money you have wasted--absolutely wasted--in your wars do not bear thinking of."

"I'm afraid it's true, sir. And we don't seem to learn much by experience. I suppose it comes from having sea-frontiers instead of land. You have to _be_ ready. We always have to _get_ ready."

"And how about the horses, Jim?" he asked. "I'm told you manage to get more than we do. That's one for you, my boy."

"We pay cash, sir. You pay in paper promises, and a man a hundred miles away will sooner part for gold than for paper."

"Truly; I would myself. Do you lose many _en route?_"

"Not two per cent, sir. Some of them are pretty wild, and they make a bolt at times, but it adds to the fun, and we nearly always get them back. Did you see Nolan's Arabs?"

"I saw them--beauties. The Prince wanted to buy two or three, but I dissuaded him. They're too delicate for a winter campaign. That big brown of yours, that Deseret gave you, is worth four of them--as far as work is concerned."

"You think we're in for a winter campaign, sir?" asked Jack eagerly.

"No doubt about it, I think. We've got to do something before we go home--some of us. Our coming up here has cleared the Russians off the Danube, but our dawdling here has given them every chance of strengthening themselves in the Crimea. The biggest thing they have there is Sebastopol, on which they have squandered money. Therefore I think it will be Sebastopol, and anything but an easy job."

"We shall get our chance, then," sparkled Jack. "We did a bit at Gallipoli, but a real big siege would be grand."

"I hope your commissariat will play up better then, or we shall have to feed you," said the Colonel, with a smile.

He liked to draw them out and get their views on men and things, and watched them keenly the while, but all his watching brought him not one whit nearer a solution of the problem of Carne than had Charles Eager's and Sir Denzil's.

In the course of one such talk, however, they made a discovery and received a shock which knocked the wind out of them.

Their father was delightfully open and frank with them as regards the past, and it drew their liking.

"I have behaved shamefully to you both," he said one time, "and still worse to one of you. And I have nothing to plead in extenuation except that I did as my fellows in those days did--which is a very poor excuse, I confess. I must make such compensation as I can. One of you will have to become Carron of Carrie, and the other M. le Compte de Carne--maybe M. le Duc by that time. There's no knowing."

"There's the Quixande matter too," said Jack thoughtfully.

"An empty title, I fear, by this time. And the Carrons were of note ages before the Quixandes were heard of. You seem to have got on very good terms with Deseret"--to Jim.

"He was very good to me, sir. I don't know why, unless it was because of his old friendship with you. He always spoke very handsomely of you."

"He was always a good fellow, but a terrible gambler. And yet I don't think he suffered on the whole. He was so confoundedly rich that it made no difference to him in any way. I have seen him win and lose £10,000 in a night at Crockford's, without turning a hair."

"I saw him win somewhere about that at a house in St. James's Street and----"

"And how much did you lose?"

"Nothing, sir; I was only looking on. Charlie Denham took me there--just to see it, you know. When Lord Deseret heard my name he came up and spoke to me. He asked me to call on him, and scribbled his address on the back of a bank-note, and gave it to me, and insisted on my keeping it."

"Just like him!"

"Then the police came and we had to get out over the roofs----"

"I would dearly have liked to see Deseret getting out over the roofs," laughed the Colonel.

"He seemed quite used to it, sir."

"I haven't a doubt of it. And he never suggested you should play?"

"On the contrary, he never ceased to warn me against it. So did Mme Beteta----"

"Mme Beteta!" And the Colonel's cigar hung fire in midair, and he sat staring at Jim as if he had called up a ghost.

"The dancer, you know. She has been awfully kind to me. Did you know her too, sir?" asked innocent Jim.

"How did you come to make _her_ acquaintance?" asked his father, with quite a change of tone, and an intentness that struck even Jim.

"We had gone to see her dance----"

"Both of you?"

"Charlie Denham and I. And Lord Deseret saw us and sent for us to his box, and at the interval he offered to take us round."

"Deseret?" And he said something under his breath in French which they did not catch. "Well--and how did she receive you?"

"She was very pleasant. She asked me to call and see her, and I've been several times."

The Colonel resumed his cigar and smoked in silence for some time, with his eyes fixed meditatively on a distant corner. Then, he seemed to make up his mind. He blew out a great cloud of smoke and said very deliberately:

"In view of what is coming it is perhaps as well you should know, though it will not help you to a solution of your puzzle--at least--I don't know. . . . It might--yes--probably it might, if one could be sure of her telling the truth for its own sake and apart from all other considerations. Mme Beteta is your mother"--and he nodded at Jim, who jumped in his chair; "or yours"--and he nodded at Jack, who sat staring fixedly at him. "She may know which of you is her own boy. I cannot tell. But she will only tell what she chooses--if I know anything of women."

"Yes," he said presently, while the boys still sat speechless, "Beteta is old Mrs. Lee's daughter. The old woman knows also, I expect, but she certainly will only tell what suits her, and you could put very little reliance on anything she said. Has madame met you both?"

"Yes, sir. She asked me to bring Jack to see her the first chance I got, and I did so."

"Well?"

"She was just the same to him, as nice as could be, anxious we should get into some scrape so that she could be of some use to us, and that kind of thing--very nice."

"Ay--well! It is just possible--it is very probable," he said weightily, "that some of us three may never get home again. We don't know for certain what we're going to attempt, so it is impossible to forecast the chances. But, in view of what may be, it is only right that you should know. Is there anything else you wish to ask? I have had great cause to regret many things in my life, but nothing, perhaps, more than this. Though, _mon Dieu!_" he said very heartily, "even this has its compensations in you two boys. However, I have no desire to refer to it again. So, if there is anything more----" And he waited for their questioning.

"There is one thing, sir," said Jack, unwillingly enough, and yet it seemed to him necessary. "You will pardon me, I hope, but it might be of importance. Did you--were you--was your marriage with madame all in order?"

The Colonel nodded as though he had been expecting the question.

"In justice to her, I must say that she believed so at the time, but there were irregularities in it which would probably invalidate it if brought to the test, and I think she is now aware of it."

"You have met her since?"

"Oh yes. We have been on friendly terms for some years past."

"And you believe she could solve the question that is troubling us all, if she would?"

"I think it likely, but--you must see," and he addressed himself more particularly to Jack--"that most women, in such a case, would lie through thick and thin to establish their own cause."

"I don't know," said Jack doubtfully. "I suppose it is possible."

"It is certain. However, the solution to the puzzle may come otherwise,"--they knew what he meant--"so now we will drop the matter, and you must think of me as little unkindly as you can. Jean-Marie," to an orderly outside, "bring us fresh coffee and more cognac."

"Do you know that Canrobert lost three thousand of his men up in the Dobrudscha?"

"Three thousand!" gasped Jim.

"They got into some swamp full of rotting horses and dead Russians and consequent pestilence, and the men died like flies."

"It is hard to go like that," said Jim. "I'd sooner die ten times over in fair fight than of the cholera. That's what's knocking the heart out of the men, that and having nothing to do but watch the other fellows die."

"Ay--well, we'll give them something to do at last. Every Tom, Dick, and François is to set to work making fascines and gabions."

"That means a siege, then," said Jack, with delight. "And our time's coming after all."