“Now, tell me how they knew that Napoleon had a pact with God?  Was that natural, d’ye think?

“They held to it in their minds that Napoleon commanded the genii, and could pass hither and thither in the twinkling of an eye, like a bird.  The fact is, he was everywhere.  At last, it came to his carrying off a queen, beautiful as the dawn, for whom he had offered all his treasure, and diamonds as big as pigeons’ eggs,—­a bargain which the Mameluke to whom she particularly belonged positively refused, although he had several others.  Such matters, when they come to that pass, can’t be settled without a great many battles; and, indeed, there was no scarcity of battles; there was fighting enough to please everybody.  We were in line at Alexandria, at Gizeh, and before the Pyramids; we marched in the sun and through the sand, where some, who had the dazzles, saw water that they couldn’t drink, and shade where their flesh was roasted.  But we made short work of the Mamelukes; and everybody else yielded at the voice of Napoleon, who took possession of Upper and Lower Egypt, Arabia, and even the capitals of kingdoms that were no more, where there were thousand of statues and all the plagues of Egypt, more particularly lizards,—­a mammoth of a country where everybody could take his acres of land for as little as he pleased.  Well, while Napoleon was busy with his affairs inland,—­where he had it in his head to do fine things,—­the English burned his fleet at Aboukir; for they were always looking about them to annoy us.  But Napoleon, who had the respect of the East and of the West, whom the Pope called his son, and the cousin of Mohammed called ‘his dear father,’ resolved to punish England, and get hold of India in exchange for his fleet.  He was just about to take us across the Red Sea into Asia, a country where there are diamonds and gold to pay the soldiers and palaces for bivouacs, when the Mahdi made a treaty with the Plague, and sent it down to hinder our victories.  Halt!  The army to a man defiled at that parade; and few there were who came back on their feet.  Dying soldiers couldn’t take Saint-Jean d’Acre, though they rushed at it three times with generous and martial obstinacy.  The Plague was the strongest.  No saying to that enemy, ‘My good friend.’  Every soldier lay ill.  Napoleon alone was fresh as a rose, and the whole army saw him drinking in pestilence without its doing him a bit of harm.

“Ha! my friends! will you tell me that that’s in the nature of a mere man?

“The Mamelukes knowing we were all in the ambulances, thought they could stop the way; but that sort of joke wouldn’t do with Napoleon.  So he said to his demons, his veterans, those that had the toughest hide, ’Go, clear me the way.’  Junot, a sabre of the first cut, and his particular friend, took a thousand men, no more, and ripped up the army of the pacha who had had the presumption to put himself in the way.  After that, we came back to headquarters