“What! swim from hence to that island? I would try, if I was shut up in this horrid place, and had the chance.”
The distance I reckoned to be about three miles; and as my friend has since swum across the Bosphorus, where the current is strong, he would probably have found no difficulty in that part of the affair.
“But how about cutting the cord to get rid of the thirty-two-pound shot, and extricating yourself from the sack?”
“_Ça dépend!_ All this is not impossible for a strong man in good health; for a prisoner, exhausted by fourteen years' captivity in a dungeon—_c'est autre chose_. Have you read the book?”
“Not much of it; I tried, but could not get on. That class of works is by no means to my taste.”
“French literature of this school is, I admit, bad for the weak: it is pastime to the strong, and serves to wile away an idle hour. This work exhibits great genius, and a powerful imagination.”
“So, indeed, it seems; but may not the _vraisemblable_ be preserved even in works of fiction? Let us have a story which, _se non è vero, è ben trovato_. Writers of this school, my dear fellow, create, or pander to, a vicious taste.”
“In a play or novel, I grant you, the plot, characters, and incidents, in order to enlist our sympathies, should be true to nature and real life. But who looks for this in a romance? such works are not read for profit, and the boldest nights of fancy, and some extravagance, are fairly admissible.”
“_Ah, mon cher_, my age is double yours, and that makes a great difference in our views on such subjects.”
The recruits flocked round us, asking for _eau-de-vie_. Many of them were Italians, deserters from the armies in Lombardy, Piedmont, and the Papal states, glad to change their service for better pay and treatment under the French flag, even on the burning plains of Africa. Perhaps some of them were drafted into that “foreign legion” which rivalled the Zouaves in the Crimea,—_âmes perdus_, the most reckless before the enemy, the most licentious in the camp. These were merry fellows, launching witty shafts against Austrians, Pope, and Cardinals,—_maladetti tutti_, and good-humoured gibes at their comrade, who, standing in an embrasure, bent his back with laudable patience to the right angle for an easel, while my friend was making sketches of the rocky islets and lateen-sail vessels reflected on the mirror-like sea, or of the amphitheatre of mountains at the foot of which Marseilles stands.