"To a brave fellow, the old companion of my blacksmith days. Like me, he left the hammer for the lance. The fortune of war served me better than it did him. Despite his bravery, my friend Eustace has remained a simple horseman, while I have been promoted to captain. But there he is, yonder, with his arms crossed, and motionless as a signpost. Ho! Eustace! Eustace!" At the call, the companion of Captain Marion approached slowly, with his arms crossed over his breast. He was a man of middle size and vigorous frame. His pale blonde hair and beard, his bilious complexion, his harsh and sullen physiognomy offered a striking contrast to the pleasant exterior of the captain. I asked myself what singular affinity could draw two men of such different appearance, and doubtless also such dissimilar characters, into close and constant friendship. "How is that, friend Eustace," the captain jokingly remarked to him, "you remain yonder looking at me with crossed arms, while I am engaged in holding back a runaway team?" "You are strong," Eustace answered; "what aid can the flesh-worm bring to the bull?" "That man is certainly consumed with jealousy and hatred," I thought to myself at hearing the answer and observing the sullen looks of the captain's friend. "There is no flesh-worm nor bull in the case, my friend Eustace," answered the captain with his habitual joviality and looking rather flattered by the comparison; "but when the flesh-worm and the bull are comrades, then, however strong the latter may be, or small the former, the one does not forsake the other--union makes strength, says the proverb." "Captain," answered the soldier with a bitter smile, "did I ever forsake you in the hour of danger? Have I not always fought at your side, since we left the forge together?" "I bear witness to the truth of that," cried Marion cordially, taking Eustace by the hand. "As true as the sword you carry is the last weapon I forged in order to give you a token of friendship, as it is engraved on the blade, you have ever in battle 'marched in my shadow,' as the saying goes in my country." "What is there strange about that?" replied the soldier. "Beside you, so brave and robust, I was what the shadow is to the body." "By the devil! Look at the shadow! My friend Eustace!" the captain exclaimed and laughed, and addressing me he added pointing at his companion Eustace: "Let me have two or three thousand shadows like that, and the first battle that we fight on the other side of the Rhine, I shall bring back a herd of Frankish prisoners." "You are a captain of renown! I, like so many other poor waifs, are good only to obey, to fight and to be killed. We are only meat for battles," replied the old blacksmith with an envious look and his lips slightly losing their color. "Captain," I said to Marion, "I presume you wish to see Victorin and his mother?" "Yes, I have a report to render to Victorin of a journey that my friend and I have just made."