“Beg pardon, monsieur, but the guide had a right to do it... He saw
the impossibility of holding back those who had fallen, and he detached
himself from them to save his life, that of his son, and of the
traveller they were accompanying... Without his action seven persons
would have lost their lives instead of four.”
Then a discussion began. Tartarin thought that in letting yourself be
roped in file you were bound in honour to live and die together; and
growing excited, especially in presence of ladies, he backed his opinion
by facts and by persons present: “Tomorrow, _té!_ to-morrow, in roping
myself to Bom-pard, it is not a simple precaution that I shall take,
it is an oath before God and man to be one with my companion and to die
sooner than return without him, _coquin de sort!_”
“I accept the oath for myself, as for you, Tar-tarin...” cried Bompard
from the other side of the round table.
Exciting moment!
The minister, electrified, rose, came to the hero and inflicted upon him
a pump-handle exercise of the hand that was truly English. His wife did
likewise, then all the young ladies continued the _shake hands_ with
enough vigour to have brought water to the fifth floor of the house. The
delegates, I ought to mention, were less enthusiastic.
“Eh, _bé!_ as for me,” said Bravida, “I am of M. Baltet’s opinion. In
matters of this kind, each man should look to his own skin, _pardi!_ and
I understand that cut of the axe perfectly.”
“You amaze me, Placide,” said Tartarin, severely; adding in a low voice:
“Behave yourself! England is watching us.”
The old captain, who certainly had kept a root of bitterness in
his heart ever since the excursion to Chillon, made a gesture that
signified: “I don’t care _that_ for England...” and might perhaps have
drawn upon himself a sharp rebuke from the president, irritated at so
much cynicism, but at this moment the young man with the heart-broken
look, filled to the full with grog and melancholy, brought his extremely
bad French into the conversation. He thought, he said, that the
guide was right to cut the rope: to deliver from existence those four
unfortunate men, still young, condemned to live for many years longer;
to send them, by a mere gesture, to peace, to nothingness,--what a noble
and generous action!