The moment of fate had arrived.
"You are Colonel Gerard?" said the terrible old man.
"I am."
"Aide-de-camp to the robber who calls himself General Suchet, who
in turn represents that arch-robber Buonaparte?"
It was on my lips to tell him that he was a liar, but there is a
time to argue and a time to be silent.
"I am an honourable soldier," said I. "I have obeyed my orders
and done my duty."
The blood flushed into the old man's face and his eyes blazed
through his mask.
"You are thieves and murderers, every man of you," he cried.
"What are you doing here? You are Frenchmen.
Why are you not in France? Did we invite you to Venice? By what
right are you here? Where are our pictures? Where are the
horses of St. Mark? Who are you that you should pilfer those
treasures which our fathers through so many centuries have
collected? We were a great city when France was a desert. Your
drunken, brawling, ignorant soldiers have undone the work of
saints and heroes. What have you to say to it?"
He was, indeed, a formidable old man, for his white beard
bristled with fury and he barked out the little sentences like a
savage hound.
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