Then it was, Halt, all! And everybody marched off to
that parade from which you don't come back on your feet. Dying soldiers
couldn't take Saint Jean d'Acre, although they forced an entrance three
times with noble and stubborn courage. The Plague was too strong for us;
and it wasn't any use to say "Please don't!" to the Plague. Everybody
was sick except Napoleon. He looked fresh as a rose, and the whole army
saw him drinking in pestilence without being hurt a bit. How was that?
Do you call that natural?
Well, the Mamelukes, who knew that we were all in ambulances, thought
they'd bar our way; but they couldn't play that sort of game with
Napoleon. He turned to his old fire-eaters--the fellows with the
toughest hides--and said: "Go clear the road for me." Junot, who was his
devoted friend and a number one soldier, took not more than a thousand
men, and slashed right through the army of the pasha which had had the
impudence to get in our way. Then we went back to Cairo, where we had
our headquarters.
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