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At the time of which I write, there might be seen in the registers of
the Minister of War the following entry:
SERVADAC (Hector), born at St. Trelody in the district of
Lesparre, department of the Gironde, July 19th, 18—.
Property: 1200 francs in rentes.
Length of service: Fourteen years, three months, and five days.
Service: Two years at school at St. Cyr; two years at L’Ecole
d’Application; two years in the 8th Regiment of the Line; two years in
the 3rd Light Cavalry; seven years in Algeria.
Campaigns: Soudan and Japan.
Rank: Captain on the staff at Mostaganem.
Decorations: Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, March 13th, 18—.
Hector Servadac was thirty years of age, an orphan without lineage and almost
without means. Thirsting for glory rather than for gold, slightly
scatter-brained, but warm-hearted, generous, and brave, he was eminently formed
to be the protege of the god of battles.
For the first year and a half of his existence he had been the
foster-child of the sturdy wife of a vine-dresser of Medoc— a lineal
descendant of the heroes of ancient prowess; in a word, he was one of those
individuals whom nature seems to have predestined for remarkable things, and
around whose cradle have hovered the fairy godmothers of adventure and good
luck.
In appearance Hector Servadac was quite the type of an officer; he was
rather more than five feet six inches high, slim and graceful, with dark
curling hair and mustaches, well-formed hands and feet, and a clear blue eye.
He seemed born to please without being conscious of the power he possessed. It
must be owned, and no one was more ready to confess it than himself, that his
literary attainments were by no means of a high order. “We don’t
spin tops” is a favorite saying amongst artillery officers, indicating
that they do not shirk their duty by frivolous pursuits; but it must be
confessed that Servadac, being naturally idle, was very much given to
“spinning tops.” His good abilities, however, and his ready intelligence
had carried him successfully through the curriculum of his early career. He was
a good draughtsman, an excellent rider—having thoroughly mastered the
successor to the famous “Uncle Tom” at the riding-school of St.
Cyr— and in the records of his military service his name had several
times been included in the order of the day.
The following episode may suffice, in a certain degree, to illustrate
his character. Once, in action, he was leading a detachment of infantry through
an intrenchment. They came to a place where the side-work of the trench had
been so riddled by shell that a portion of it had actually fallen in, leaving
an aperture quite unsheltered from the grape-shot that was pouring in thick and
fast. The men hesitated. In an instant Servadac mounted the side-work, laid
himself down in the gap, and thus filling up the breach by his own body,
shouted, “March on!”
And through a storm of shot, not one of which touched the prostrate
officer, the troop passed in safety.
Since leaving the military college, Servadac, with the exception of his
two campaigns in the Soudan and Japan, had been always stationed in Algeria. He
had now a staff appointment at Mostaganem, and had lately been entrusted with
some topographical work on the coast between Tenes and the Shelif. It was a
matter of little consequence to him that the gourbi, in which of necessity he
was quartered, was uncomfortable and ill-contrived; he loved the open air, and
the independence of his life suited him well. Sometimes he would wander on foot
upon the sandy shore, and sometimes he would enjoy a ride along the summit of
the cliff; altogether being in no hurry at all to bring his task to an end. His
occupation, moreover, was not so engrossing but that he could find leisure for
taking a short railway journey once or twice a week; so that he was ever and
again putting in an appearance at the general’s receptions at Oran, and
at the fetes given by the governor at Algiers.
It was on one of these occasions that he had first met Madame de
L——, the lady to whom he was desirous of dedicating the rondo, the
first four lines of which had just seen the light. She was a colonel’s
widow, young and handsome, very reserved, not to say haughty in her manner, and
either indifferent or impervious to the admiration which she inspired. Captain
Servadac had not yet ventured to declare his attachment; of rivals he was well
aware he had not a few, and amongst these not the least formidable was the
Russian Count Timascheff. And although the young widow was all unconscious of
the share she had in the matter, it was she, and she alone, who was the cause
of the challenge just given and accepted by her two ardent admirers.
During his residence in the gourbi, Hector Servadac’s sole
companion was his orderly, Ben Zoof. Ben Zoof was devoted, body and soul, to
his superior officer. His own personal ambition was so entirely absorbed in his
master’s welfare, that it is certain no offer of promotion—even had
it been that of aide-de-camp to the Governor-General of Algiers— would have
induced him to quit that master’s service. His name might seem to imply
that he was a native of Algeria; but such was by no means the case. His true
name was Laurent; he was a native of Montmartre in Paris, and how or why he had
obtained his patronymic was one of those anomalies which the most sagacious of
etymologists would find it hard to explain.
Born on the hill of Montmartre, between the Solferino tower and the mill
of La Galette, Ben Zoof had ever possessed the most unreserved admiration for
his birthplace; and to his eyes the heights and district of Montmartre
represented an epitome of all the wonders of the world. In all his travels, and
these had been not a few, he had never beheld scenery which could compete with
that of his native home. No cathedral—not even Burgos itself—could
vie with the church at Montmartre. Its race-course could well hold its own
against that at Pentelique; its reservoir would throw the Mediterranean into
the shade; its forests had flourished long before the invasion of the Celts;
and its very mill produced no ordinary flour, but provided material for cakes
of world-wide renown. To crown all, Montmartre boasted a mountain—a
veritable mountain; envious tongues indeed might pronounce it little more than
a hill; but Ben Zoof would have allowed himself to be hewn in pieces rather
than admit that it was anything less than fifteen thousand feet in height.
Ben Zoof’s most ambitious desire was to induce the captain to go
with him and end his days in his much-loved home, and so incessantly were
Servadac’s ears besieged with descriptions of the unparalleled beauties
and advantages of this eighteenth arrondissement of Paris, that he could
scarcely hear the name of Montmartre without a conscious thrill of aversion.
Ben Zoof, however, did not despair of ultimately converting the captain, and
meanwhile had resolved never to leave him. When a private in the 8th Cavalry,
he had been on the point of quitting the army at twenty-eight years of age, but
unexpectedly he had been appointed orderly to Captain Servadac. Side by side
they fought in two campaigns. Servadac had saved Ben Zoof’s life in
Japan; Ben Zoof had rendered his master a like service in the Soudan. The bond
of union thus effected could never be severed; and although Ben Zoof’s
achievements had fairly earned him the right of retirement, he firmly declined
all honors or any pension that might part him from his superior officer. Two
stout arms, an iron constitution, a powerful frame, and an indomitable courage
were all loyally devoted to his master’s service, and fairly entitled him
to his soi-disant designation of “The Rampart of
Montmartre.” Unlike his master, he made no pretension to any gift of
poetic power, but his inexhaustible memory made him a living encyclopaedia; and
for his stock of anecdotes and trooper’s tales he was matchless.
Thoroughly appreciating his servant’s good qualities, Captain
Servadac endured with imperturbable good humor those idiosyncrasies, which in a
less faithful follower would have been intolerable, and from time to time he
would drop a word of sympathy that served to deepen his subordinate’s
devotion.
On one occasion, when Ben Zoof had mounted his hobby-horse, and was
indulging in high-flown praises about his beloved eighteenth arrondissement,
the captain had remarked gravely, “Do you know, Ben Zoof, that Montmartre
only requires a matter of some thirteen thousand feet to make it as high as
Mont Blanc?”
Ben Zoof’s eyes glistened with delight; and from that moment
Hector Servadac and Montmartre held equal places in his affection.
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