Page:Memoirs of Vidocq, Volume 3.djvu/261

 assured me that my visit afforded them the greatest pleasure they were capable of receiving, and entreated me to bestow on them one friendly embrace, in token of my forgiveness of their past, and satisfaction at their present, conduct. I had not the heart to refuse them. They were fastened to a camp bed, with their hands and feet heavily fettered. I advanced towards them, and they pressed me in their arms with all the warmth and enthusiasm with which the sincerest friends would welcome each other after a long separation. A friend of mine, who was present at this interview, experienced considerable alarm at seeing me in a manner entirely at the mercy of two assassins.

"Fear nothing," said I.

"No, no," exclaimed Raoul, "fear nothing, there is little chance of our wishing to injure our good friend M. Jules."

"M. Jules!" cried Court, "no, indeed, he is our only friend, and what is more, he does not forsake us now!"

As I was leaving them, I perceived two small books lying beside them, one of which was half open, and was entitled "Christian Meditations."

"You have been reading, my friends," said I, "is religion a favourite study with you?"

"Oh no," said Raoul, "I know very little about it; these books were left us this morning by a clergyman who has been to visit us. I have just opened them, and certainly if people would follow the precepts they contain, the world would be better than it now is."

"Yes, so I think," said Court, "I am beginning to see that religion is not such a humbug as I once thought it; depend upon it we were not sent into the world to live and die like brutes."

I congratulated the new converts upon the happy change which had taken place in them.

"Who would have thought, two months back," resumed Court, "that I should suffer myself to be noodled by a priest!"