THE CARNAGE  
Bonaparte was walking in front of his tent with Bourrienne, impatiently awaiting news, and having no other of his intimates at hand, when he saw two troops of armed men leaving the town by different gates. One of them was led by Croisier, and the other by Eugene de Beauharnais. Their young faces shone with joy.
Croisier, who had not smiled since he had had the misfortune to displease the commander-in-chief, was smiling now, for he hoped that this fine prize would conciliate the master. Bonaparte understood the whole thing. He grew pale, and said sorrowfully: "What do you suppose I am going to do with those men? Have I food to give them? Have I ships to send the wretched creatures to France or Egypt?"
The two young men halted ten feet from him. They saw by the rigid expression of his face that they had made a mistake.
"What have you there?" he asked.
Croisier dared not reply, but Eugene spoke for both.
"As you see, general, prisoners."
"Did I tell you to take any prisoners?"
"You told us to stop the carnage," replied Eugene, timidly.
"Yes," replied the general, "of women, children, and old men I did; but not of armed soldiers. Do you know that you have forced me to commit a crime?"
The young men understood and retired in dismay. Croisier was weeping. Eugene tried to console him; but he shook his head and said: "It is all over with me; the first opportunity that offers I shall let myself be shot."
[Pg 584]
Before deciding upon the fate of the unfortunate prisoners, Bonaparte decided to call a council of the generals. But soldiers and generals had bivouacked outside the town. The soldiers did not stop until they were weary. Besides the four thousand prisoners, they left nearly five thousand dead. The pillage of the houses lasted all night. From time to time shots echoed through the night. Dull cries of anguish resounded incessantly in the streets, the houses, and the mosques.
They came from soldiers who were dragged from their places of concealment and slaughtered; by inhabitants who were trying to defend their treasures; by husbands and fathers who were striving to defend their wives and daughters from the brutality of the soldiers.
But the vengeance of Heaven was hidden beneath all this cruelty. The plague was in Jaffa, and the army carried the germs of it away with them.
The prisoners were, in the first place, ordered to sit down together in front of the tents. Their hands were tied behind their backs. Their faces were downcast, more from dread of what was in store for them than from anger. They had seen Bonaparte's face darken when he perceived them; and they had heard, although they had not understood it, the reprimand which he had bestowed upon the young soldiers. But what they had not understood they had divined.
Some of them ventured to say, "I am hungry"; others, "I am thirsty."
They brought them all water and gave each of them a piece of bread, taken from the soldiers' rations. This reassured them a trifle.
As fast as the generals returned they were bidden to repair at once to the general-in-chief's tent. They deliberated a long time without arriving at any decision. On the following day the diurnal reports of the generals of division came in. All complained of insufficient rations. The only ones who had eaten and drunk their fill were[Pg 585] those who had entered the town during the fight and were therefore entitled to take part in the pillage. But they constituted merely a fourth of the army. All the rest complained at having to share their bread with the enemy, who had been rescued from legitimate vengeance; since, according to the laws of war, Jaffa having been taken by storm, all the soldiers who were within its walls should have perished by the sword.
The council assembled once more. Five questions were proposed for its deliberation.
"Should the men be sent to Egypt?"
But this would require a large escort, and the army was already over-weak to defend itself against the deadly hostility of the country. Besides that, how could they and their escort be fed until they reached Cairo, when they would be obliged to travel through the enemy's country, previously laid waste by the army which had just passed through it and which had no food to give the prisoners to start with.
"Should they put them on shipboard?"
Where were the ships? Where could they be found? The sea was like a desert, or at least it was dotted by no friendly sails.
"Should they be restored to liberty?"
In that case they would go straight to Saint-Jean-d'Acre, to reinforce the Pasha, or else into the mountains of Nablos. Then in every ravine they would be assailed by an invisible army of sharpshooters.
"Should they incorporate them, disarmed as th............