Belle-Rose — page 159: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

148 DICE AND CARDS, - Conrad threw the dice and lost; at the third throw he - no longer had anything. ‘‘My officer,’? Said he to Monsieur de Villebrais, who was watching them with arms crossed upon his breast, be | also have a saber and a hand—do you wish them?’’ ‘‘Here are twenty ducats.’”’ ‘‘Bargain concluded,’’ said Conrad, slipping the money into his pockets. ‘‘OConrad,’’ brusquely exclaimed a new-comer wearing the hussars’ uniform, ‘‘Jeanne has taken a fancy for a necklace to go with her cold cross; I have nothing except my horse left—do you want it?”’ ‘‘T take the horse and give it to you,”’ said Monsieur de Villebrais. ‘You give me the’ money and the horse?” said the — hussar, counting his gold-pieces. ‘I give them to you, but on one condition.”’ “Only one?’’ “That is all; the horse and man will follow me eyery- where I go.’ “They are ready.’’ At the end of a quarter of an hour Monsieur de Ville. brais had recruited his band. There was in the little troop which Monsieur de Villebrais conducted to the lodging assigned him a Lorraine, two Walloons, a native of Franc- Comtois, a Piedmontese, two Swiss, two Dutchmen, and a Bavarian. Heranged his new acolytes around him and examined them attentively. ‘You have,’’ he said to them a moment after, ‘‘as wages half a pistole per day and a whole one on days when there is an expedition. ’’ ‘‘Bravo!’’ said the Piedmontese. ‘‘Night service will receive double pay.’ ‘“Good,’’ said the native of Tereeou tan ‘I will sleep } during the day.”’ ‘‘At the first word ’tis necessary to be ready; atthe ~ first sign ‘tis necessary to leave; at the first order ‘tis — necessary to kill.” ‘If it is the order, it is done,’’ said the Bavarian. “Go, now; you, Conrad, remain.’ The troop disappeared, and Conrad sat down in one corner, while Monsieur de Villebrais fumbled in his valise. ‘‘Listen,’’ said the lieutenant, who had just drawn a ‘paper from the valise, ‘‘and keep well in mind what lam } going to say to you.”’ ‘‘I am listening,’’ said the Lorraine, comicbooks.com