THE BULLET MERCHANT  
Since Bonaparte had returned from Mount Tabor, nearly a month before, not a day had passed that the batteries had ceased to thunder, or when there had been a truce between besieged and besiegers. This was the first resistance that Fortune had cast in Bonaparte's path. The siege of Saint-Jean-d'Acre lasted sixty days. There were seven assaults and twelve sorties. Caffarelli died from having his arm amputated, and Croisier was still confined to his couch of suffering. A thousand men had been killed or had died of the plague. And while there was still plenty of powder there were no bullets.
The report spread through the army; such things cannot be concealed from the soldiers. One morning a sergeant-major approached Roland, who was in the trench with Bonaparte, and said to him: "Is it true, my commandant, that the commander-in-chief is in need of bullets?"
"Yes," replied Roland. "Why?"
"Oh," replied the sergeant-major, with a movement of the neck which was peculiar to him, and apparently dated back to the days when he wore a cravat for the first time, and did not like the feeling, "if he wants some I can get them for him."
"You?"
"Yes, I. And not so dear either. Five sous."
"Five sous! And they cost the government forty!"
"You see, it would be a good bargain."
"You are not joking?"
"Do you think I would joke with my superiors?"
Roland went up to Bonaparte and told him what the sergeant-major had just said.
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"These rogues often have good ideas," he said. "Call him."
Roland beckoned to the sergeant to come forward. He advanced with a military step, and stopped a couple of yards away from Bonaparte with his hand at the vizor of his shako.
"Are you the bullet merchant?" asked Bonaparte.
"I sell them, but I do not make them."
"And you can furnish them for five sous?"
"Yes, general."
"How do you do that?"
"Ah! that is my secret! If I were to tell it, everybody would be selling them."
"How many can you furnish me?"
"As many as you wish," replied the sergeant-major.
"What must I give you for that?"
"Permission to go in bathing with my company."
Bonaparte burst out laughing, for he understood at once.
"Very well," he said. "Go!"
The sergeant-major saluted and started off at a run. Shortly afterward the commander-in-chief and his aide saw the company to whom the former had given the permission to bathe pass with the sergeant-major at their head.
"Come and see something curious," said Bonaparte.
And taking Roland's arm, he ascended a little hill, from which the whole gulf was visible.
They saw the sergeant-major set the example by rushing into the water, as he certainly would have done had he been rushing into fire, after having first removed his clothing, and wade into the sea with a part of his men, while the others scattered along the shore. Roland had not understood until then.
But scarcely had the sergeant-major executed this man?uvre than the English frigates and the ramparts of Saint-Jean-d'Acre opened fire, and a storm of bullets fell around them. As the soldiers, both those who were in the water[Pg 633] and those who had remained on shore, took good care to stay at a safe distance from each other, the bullets fell into the spaces between them, and were immediately picked up without a single one being lost, not even those which fell into the water. The beach sloped gradually, and the soldiers had only to stoop and pick them up.
This strange game lasted two hours. At the end of that time the inventor of the system had collected from a thousand to twelve hundred bullets, which netted three hundred francs to the company, a hundred francs for each man lost. The company thought it a very good bargain. ............