Captain Servadac And His Orderly

: BOOK I.
: Off On A Comet

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 y
ars 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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