His very soul writhed. The tenacity of that Feraud,
the awful persistence of that imbecile brute, came to him with the
tremendous force of a relentless destiny. General D'Hubert trembled as
he put down the empty water ewer. "He will have me," he thought. General
D'Hubert was tasting every emotion that life has to give. He had in
his dry mouth the faint sickly flavour of fear, not the excusable fear
before a young girl's candid and amused glance, but the fear of death
and the honourable man's fear of cowardice.
But if true courage consists in going out to meet an odious danger from
which our body, soul, and heart recoil together, General D'Hubert had
the opportunity to practise it for the first time in his life. He had
charged exultingly at batteries and at infantry squares, and ridden with
messages through a hail of bullets without thinking anything about
it. His business now was to sneak out unheard, at break of day, to
an obscure and revolting death. General D'Hubert never hesitated. He
carried two pistols in a leather bag which he slung over his shoulder.
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