One of the Six Hundred 11One of the Six Hundred (part 11)
18
Literature · Romance
One of the Six Hundred 11
One of the Six Hundred (part 11)
GrantEnglish
"Monsieur, then, belongs to the English service?"
"No."
"The Osmanli army, then?"
"No, mademoiselle; I belong to the British," said I.
"Ah! true. But your uniform is not red?"
"All our light cavalry wear blue. Ah, ma soeur, seek the quarters of the lancers serving in the Light Brigade, and see if there is a letter for me. It will do me more good than all the doses of our Italian doctor."
"Ah! you will be dosed by him no more."
"I am truly glad to hear it. Some of his messes were vile enough."
"Do not speak so ungratefully; but you know not what I mean or what has happened."
"How?"
"Poor monsieur le docteur is dead."
"Dead!"
"He died of cholera in the cavalry camp yesterday. He had volunteered to attend the sick soldiers in the vale of Aladyn, and perished at his post among them."
I was greatly shocked by this intelligence, which perhaps, it was not wise in my little nurse to afford me at such a time.
When again I woke from sleep the shadows of evening were darkening the room; the trellis-work and Venetian lattices that had opened to the sunlit garden were closed now, and the sun had set. Sister Archange was seated in her usual place upon the low divan, but looking pale and exceedingly fatigued.
She had been at the British cavalry camp, and she had seen my friends, but no letters had arrived for me, of that she was assured, as she had taken one of my cards from its case to show the commanding officer.
"No letters?" I repeated, in a hollow tone.
"No; but, monsieur mon frere, must take courage. Many, many ships have perished in a recent storm in the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmora, and your letters may have gone to the bottom with the mail steamer. Monsieur Estoodome--monsieur l'adjudant he is, I think, of your regiment--and monsieur le colonel, too, will ride over here to-morrow to see you. And now there must be no more talking, but to sleep, mon ami--to sleep. I must take care of you now, for la soeur Archange will not be with you always."
"What are you doing?"
"Making the sign of the cross on your forehead, mon frere. To-morrow I shall tell you what it means, if you will remind me; but, for to-night, adieu."
*CHAPTER XXXIII.*
O fondest memories! come and go,
Shine on sad times which are no more,
As sunbeams gladden waters of snow,
As wavelets kiss a barren shore:
And light with love and tenderness
The happy days which still are ours;
Whose influence, rich in April showers,
Casts round us love and tenderness.
The clatter of spurs and scabbards, and the firmer tread of feet than one usually hears among the slipshod or slippered Moslems, next forenoon, announced the arrival of my friends, and most welcome to me was the appearance of Colonel Beverley, Studhome, Wilford, and Jocelyn of ours, all fearless of cholera, as they came through the verandah of the kiosk where I lay; and there, too, lingering without, I saw my faithful follower, Pitblado.
They were all in full uniform and accoutred, for it was the day of a great review; and all bowed with politeness to the sister of charity, who immediately withdrew to the shadow of the verandah.
"I rejoice to see you, my dear boy," said the colonel; "we had all given you up as lost to us and to the regiment."
"Lost, colonel?" I repeated.
"Faith, did we, Newton," said Studhome. "We concluded that you had been waylaid--cut off in the flower of your youth and day-dawn of ambition, as the novels have it--by some Bulgarian footpads or rascally Bashi Bazooks, for I presume you know that no one can go beyond the advanced posts with safety without a revolver."
"A rumour reached us of a British cavalry officer being conveyed seriously ill to the house of an Armenian gentleman," resumed Beverley. "We strongly suspected that you were the person, and the presumption became a certainty when yesterday this young lady brought your card to my tent at the cavalry camp."
"She is a good little saint," said I, with enthusiasm.
"And so, Norcliff, you have actually had cholera--that foul pest which is destroying our noble army piece-meal?"
"I am recovering, as you see; but pray don't linger here, colonel. There is danger by my side."
"Norcliff, the air we breathe is full of cholera," said Beverley, impatiently twisting his grizzled moustache; "our poor fellows are dying of it like sheep with the rot!"
"If the Emperor of Russia had planned the whole affair himself, he could not have taken better measures to weaken and decimate us than this useless camp at Varna."
"You are right, Studhome--to decimate us before the war begins," added Jocelyn.
"When do we take the field, colonel?"
"No one knows."
"Then how long are we to remain here?"
"No one can tell. Satisfactory, isn't it? In fact, no one knows anything."
"Except," said Studhome, "that we are giving the Russians plenty of time to prepare a hot reception for us, if we venture to seek 'the bubble reputation' in the Crimea--or military fame, which, as some one says, consists of 'a few orders on a tight uniform.'"
"How far am I from the camp, colonel?"
"About five miles."
"Five miles!" I exclaimed, "Then you, my poor friend, Sister Archange, actually walked for me ten miles under a broiling sun yesterday?"
"Yes, monsieur le capitaine," she replied; "and happy would I have been could I have returned with what you wished for."
"How sorry I am! How can I ever repay, ever apologize, for the amount of trouble I have given you?"
"Apologies are not to be thought of," said she, quietly; "and as for repayment, we do not look for that--here, at least."
She smiled, and looked very beautiful. Twirling his carefully-bandolined moustache, Jocelyn, who had been observing her admiringly, was about to address her in, perhaps, rather a heedless way, when Beverley said to him pointedly--
"Those French sisters of charity are the admiration of all the troops. Even the stupid Turks adore them, and are bewildered by a devotion and purity of purpose which their sensual souls cannot understand. Mademoiselle, we have no language to describe what we owe to your order."
The sister of charity gave the colonel a pleasant smile, and a bow full of grace and good humour.
"Our visit," said he, "is necessarily a hurried one. We are all in full puff, as you may see, Norcliff, for this afternoon the cavalry division is to be reviewed before Omar Pasha and Marshal St. Arnaud."
"Hence my Lord Lucan is most anxious that each and all should appear in his best bib and tucker," added Studhome.
After they were gone, I turned again to thank the gentle sister of charity for the journey she had made, on a hot and breathless day, through a camp of more than eighty thousand foreign troops, to serve me.
She only gave me one of her pleasant smiles, and; taking the miniature of Louisa from the tripod table, said in a low voice, "Is this the lady from whom you expect letters?"
"Yes."
She shook her head sadly, as if her survey of the tiny portrait had not proved satisfactory.
"Why do you look thus, ma soeur? What do you see?"
"Much of dangerous beauty; but more of pride, of caution, tact, and cold decision. The eyebrows nearly meet--I don't like that. The eyes are lovely; but--but----"
"What?" I asked, almost imperiously.
"I dare not say it. I may be guilty of the sin of detraction."
"Nay, speak, I beg of you. The eyes are lovely, you say, but----"
"Have an untruthful expression."
"Ah, good heavens, don't say so!"
My heart sank as she spoke, and I sighed deeply.
"I have seen such eyes and brows once before, and I remember the sorrow they wrought."
The paragraph which I had read in the London morning paper, on board the Ganges, in the harbour of Valetta--that fulsome paragraph, at which Berkeley had smiled so complacently and covertly--came to my memory word for word now. Was it possible that the journal was true, and Louisa false? After an uncomfortable pause, I related to the sister the strange episode which occurred at the house of the hakim Abd-el-Rasig.
"Magique!" she exclaimed, while her large eyes became larger still, and she crossed herself three several times with great earnestness. "O Sainte Dame! you tried the art of the great fiend, did you?"
"Who--I? Not at all! How could I? Don't imagine anything so absurd. The man is only a trickster, like Houdin or Herr Frickel."
But she seemed so horrified at me, and "the art that none may name," that I was fain to explain that the whole affair originated in the suggestion of Studhome, and some of the officers of the 2nd Zouaves, in a moment of idleness.
"I can tell you many a tale of the wickedness of having recourse to magic, and the retribution which falls on those who do so," said she. "Have you ever read the writings of the fathers?"
"No, I regret exceedingly," I was beginning, when I could not help laughing at her conceiving such a course of reading palatable to a young cavalry officer. Even the pundits who "go in" for cramming, that they may have the magical letters "P.S.C." after their names in the "Army List," do not go that length.
Passed (final examination) at the Staff College,
"Have you ever heard of St. Jerome?" she asked, gravely.
"I think so, ma soeur."
"Well, I shall tell you a tale he records concerning magic, and one who resorted thereto. Once upon a time in France, your odious Abd-el-Rasig would have been burned alive, for there can be no doubt that, like those of the Egyptian magicians of old, his operations are conducted with infernal agency. Can the accounts we hear of those magicians from Moses admit of any other construction?"
"Of course not, though I can't for the life of me see what you are driving at."
"If ever you see him again, mon frere, make the sign of the cross, and then you will see how he will shrink and whine, like Mephistopheles in the opera, for it is a sign that always sends the thoughts heavenward. We are told that, if St. Ephrem saw a little bird fly, he always remembered that, with pinions outspread, it made the sign of the cross as it soared towards heaven; but that when it folded those wings the holy sign was marred, and the poor bird fell at once, grovelling and fluttering, on the earth."
"Well, ma soeur; but the story and St. Jerome?"
"Pardon me, I had forgotten. He tells, in his life of St. Hilarion the Hermit--ah, you never heard of him either--that a gay young man of the town of Gaza, in Syria, fell deeply in love with a young lady, whom he used to see occasionally in those beautiful gardens of tamarisks, figs, and olives for which the place is still so famous; but she was pious, devoted to Heaven and to religion, and, consequently, shunned him--a course which only added the stings of jealousy and attraction to the passion which she had inspired.
"His glances, his tender whispers, his presents, and professions she treated with coldness; his attempted caresses she repulsed with anger and disdain, till, finding all his attempts baffled and ineffectual, in a fit of rage and despair he went to Memphis, which was then the residence of many eminent magicians, all reputed to possess wonderful power.
"There he remained a whole year, studying the dark mysteries under the tutelage of the most learned, until he deemed himself sufficiently instructed; and, exulting in his unholy knowledge, acquired chiefly among the graves which still lie to the south and westward of Memphis, and where one may walk for miles and miles amid bones and fragments of crumbling mummies, he returned to Gaza, confident that now he could bend the inflexible beauty to his will.
"Beneath the marble peristyle of her father's house he contrived to lodge at midnight a plate of brass, whereon he had engraved a potent spell. Hence, the first time she passed over it a wondrous illness seized her! She became furious, says St. Jerome; she tore her glorious hair, she gnashed her teeth, and raved over the name and image of the very youth whom she had so repeatedly driven from her presence in despair by her coldness and hauteur.
"In sorrow and terror her parents conducted her to the hermitage of St. Hilarion; and then, when the holy hands of the old man crossed her, the devil that was within her began to howl, and to confess the truth.
"'I have suffered violence!' he exclaimed, speaking with her tongue, to the fear of all.
"St. Hilarion took a branch of blessed palm, and, having dipped it in holy water as an esperges, threw the sparkling drops profusely over her, on which the devil exclaimed again--
"'I have been forced here against my inclination! Alas! these drops are as freezing ice! Oh, how happy I was at Memphis among the tombs of the dead! Oh! the pains, the tortures I suffer!'
"Then the hermit commanded him to come forth; but the devil told him that he was detained by a brazen spell beneath the peristyle of the maiden's house.
"So cautious was the saint, however, that he would not permit the magic figures to be searched for till he had released the virgin, for fear he should seem to have intercourse with incantations for the performance of a cure, or to have believed that a devil could ever speak truth. He observed that demons are always liars, and cunning only to deceive."
"So the damsel was released?" said I, who had listened with some amusement to the story, which was told me with implicit faith in its veracity.
"Yes; but the devil, ere he went back to Memphis, paid a terrible visit to his first summoner; for the young man was found in the garden of olives, strangled, with the marks of talons in his throat. So, mon ami, never again have recourse to such persons as Abd-el-Rasig. Promise this to your little sister, Archange!"
"I may well promise you that, or anything else you ask," said I, charmed by her winning manner. "How sweetly your name sounds when pronounced by yourself."
"Do you really think so?" she asked, while her dark eyebrows arched up. "My godfather named me Archange, that I might be under the protection of the archangels. You comprehend me, monsieur? When I joined the order of the soeurs de la charite for my noviciate in the Rue du Vieux Colombier, to share with the Sisters of St. Martha the care of the sick in the hospitals of Paris, they saw no reason to change it; and hence I am still, as I was before--before I thought of being a sister of charity--Archange."
To a sick man's ear, there was a soothing charm in the girl's voice and its intonation. Then her broken English, her earnestness, truthfulness, and intense faith in all the little religious legends and anecdotes with which she amused us, were all fascinating, and there came a time when I missed her, and then sorely. Add to all these that, in the girl's beautiful but colourless face, there was an expression singularly pure, noble, and frank, lofty, and at times sublime. I was very curious to know her surname, and the reason why she had adopted a life of such privation and peril as that of a Sister of Charity--an order so severe, and whose duties were a ceaseless round of privation and peril. Without being uncourteously curious, I knew not how to approach the subject; but next day, after Jack Studhome and Fred Wilford (who rode over from the camp) had retired, she imparted the little story of her past life of her own accord, and the circumstance came about very simply, through a mere remark of mine. The mail steamer had come in from Constantinople, but Studhome had no letter for me.
"Ah, ma soeur Archange, I begin to be torn by jealousy," said I.
"Why?" she asked, gently.
"I cannot say why, as the only man in England I have reason to fear is a creature so contemptible."
"Then wherefore give way to a weakness so odious and so tempting?"
"Tempting?" I repeated.
"Yes; I mean tempting to crime."
"How strangely you speak!"
"But truly," she replied, sadly.
"I do not understand----"
"I can tell you a horrible episode," she began, impetuously; "but no, 'tis better forgotten--forgotten, if possible, than to recollect it now, in all its sad details," she added, after a pause.
"Why?"
"You have unbosomed yourself to me, and have told to me your only sorrow; why should I conceal mine? or why be less communicative to you? Well, I shall tell you why I--for the sake of others, rather than even for my own soul's welfare--dedicated myself to God and the order of charity. By jealousy, and the revenge it inspired, I lost a brother whom I idolized, and two friends whom I loved dearly; and, monsieur, it all happened thus."
After a short pause, with her long dark lashes cast down, and her little white hands folded on her knees, she told me the following story:--"My father, M. Marie Anatole Chaverondier, resided in a little antique chateau among the mountains of Beaujolais, where we had a property which, though small, is fertile, and in some places is covered with fine old wood. Our chateau is very ancient, for it had anciently been a hunting-seat of the illustrious family of Beaujeu, who gave their name to all that district; and thus we have rooms that many a time were honoured by the presence of the Great Constable and the Dukes of Bourbon.
"I can, in fancy, see that dear old chateau now, with its round turrets, its gilded vanes, and white facade, rising above the green woodlands, with the blue Saone flowing in front under an ancient bridge, the central arch of which had been blown up in the wars of the old revolution, but was now partly repaired by logs of oak, that were half-hidden by luxuriant ivy, and beautiful red and white roses. Ah!" she exclaimed, while her splendid eyes became suffused with tears, "shall I ever again see the old Chateau de Chaverondier?
"My mother was dead. My father--a gentleman of the ancien regime, a strict legitimist, or adherent of the old monarchy, and a worshipper in secret of Henri V.--resided there in seclusion with his family, which consisted of myself, my brother Claude, and three or four servants; and, save our tutor, who was the old cure of the neighbouring village, or monsieur le maire of Beaujeu, we had few or no visitors; and our time glided away amid quiet pleasures, but with no sorrow, till Claude, a tall and handsome youth, left us for the military school of St. Cyr.
"There he soon received the commission of sous-lieutenant in the 3rd Light Infantry of the line, then commanded by Colonel Francois-Certain de Canrobert, now marshal of our army in the East.
"I sorrowed for my brother, my lost companion, long and earnestly. We had no more rambles now by the Sacine, in search of flowers and ferns, or in the deep dark woodland dells around the old chateau. There was a sad emptiness and loneliness in and around it, too. I no longer heard my brother's clear voice singing merrily as he prepared his flies and fishing-rod, or the report of his gun waking the echoes of the forest; and I went to mass, to confession, and to communion alone, for my father had become too feeble now to leave his apartment, and my chief solace was in attending him; so, monsieur, you see that I served an early apprenticeship in the sick chamber.
"But there were others who sorrowed for the absent Claude--the two daughters of Montalle, the maire of Beaujeu, a wealthy proprietor of several forges and furnaces, whose alliance my father would have opposed with disdain and wrath; but that did not prevent us from being great friends with Lucrece and Cecile, whom we had been in the habit of meeting so regularly at mass, and with whom we worked in common to decorate the altar of monsieur le cure on holidays.
"Both were remarkably handsome and sprightly girls. Cecile was fair and gentle, and Claude, I knew, loved her, and sighed for her, even as a boy; but Lucrece, the elder, I also knew, loved him in her secret heart, for she had frequently told me so after his departure for St. Cyr, and more than once I had seen a dangerous expression in her pale face and dark eyes when Cecile spoke of him with regret or affection. Dark as night were the eyes of Lucrece. Her nose was aquiline, and over it her eyebrows nearly met; and she had a general expression not unlike that which I saw in your miniature. Letters came at times to our old chateau among the mountains of Beaujolais from the absent Claude; but it was soon too evident that Cecile Montalle was in correspondence with him as well as I; for she knew quite as soon as we did of Claude's movements, and those of the 3rd Light Infantry, with which he was serving in Africa; and she knew before we did of how he had distinguished himself in Canrobert's famous expedition against Ahmed-Sghir, when that chief rallied the tribes of the Bouaoun in revolt against France.
"In 1850, Claude wrote us that he had been wounded in Canrobert's expedition against Narah, that Colonel Canrobert had granted him leave of absence, and that he was coming home. No hearts were so happy as ours at the old chateau, on learning that Claude was returning, and covered with honour, too--save, perhaps, the fair-haired Cecile Montalle. There was a radiance in her pink cheek, a sparkle in her beautiful blue eyes, when we met at church in Beaujeu, which showed that she, too, was mistress of the same joyous tidings; and, in the fulness of her heart, she confessed to me that she and Claude had corresponded long, had exchanged rings, and were mutually attached and engaged. I loved my brother. Could I wonder that Cecile Montalle did so too? Lucrece, who stood by us, heard all this with a lowering brow, and there was the old and strange expression in her face which had terrified me before as I kissed her, and got into our old-fashioned carriage to return to the chateau, which stands some five leagues or so from Beaujeu.
"For days I busied myself, preparing for the reception of Claude. His old room was put in order by my own hands. Alas! I could little foresee that he was never to tread its floor again! In fact, the unhappy Lucrece was the victim of an absorbing and corroding jealousy; and in her heart she was beginning to hate and to loathe her guileless and unsuspecting sister. To add to this evil feature in our mutual relations, when I ventured timidly to speak of Claude's engagement to my father, he became inflamed with sudden fury. All the buried pride of the old days of the monarchy--the days of periwigs and pasteboard skirts, of shoe-buckles and rapiers--with the memory of past greatness, and the time when the Constable and Dukes of Bourbon had joined our forefathers in the chase, and shared their hospitality in Chaverondier--all this I saw blazed up within him! His eyes flashed with fire, and his thin bent form became erect. He had been proud of his son's brilliant career under Canrobert; he had pictured for him a brilliant future; he already saw him ranked among the marshals of France, reviving the past glories of ancestors who had left their bones at Pavia, Rocroi and Ramilies.
"But now he thought all those ancient triumphs and those revived hopes would be blighted and blotted by a disgraceful marriage with a mere bourgeoise--a vulgar smelter of iron--a man who had begun life with a hammer and bellows; a grimy manufacturer of spades, ploughs, and pickaxes for the markets of Beaujeu, Belleville, and Chalieu!
"My father thought of his sixteen heraldic quarters, among which were the arms of Cressi, Sante-Croix, and Segonzoe, the three noblest families in Beaujolais, and swore by the souls of his fathers that such a marriage could never be. He did more. He wrote a severe and sarcastic letter to the maire of Beaujeu, warning him of his most severe displeasure, if the correspondence between his daughter and 'Monsieur my son, the Captain Chaverondier,' was not at once and for ever ended. To have read that letter might have made one think that the Grand Monarque was still flirting at the Trianon, and that the fleur-de-lis still waved above the Bastille of St. Antoine. On the other hand the maire Montalle was a sturdy and purse-proud republican; one who in his youth had fought at the barricades, had sacked the Tuileries, and had actually beaten on his drum, by order of Santerre, to drown the dying words of the son of St. Louis! So he retorted in a manner which I do not choose to repeat; but therewith ended all the hopes of the sweet and gentle Cecile, and of my brave brother, who was travelling, as fast as the railway trains could fly, through the provinces from Marseilles, to see us all, and his own happy home again.
"At those malignant letters, the dark Lucrece laughed bitterly. At Beaujeu poor Claude learned the state of affairs between the families, and, weak as he had become by hard service in Africa, and the wound he had received at Narah, he could barely withstand the shock. It filled him with despair; but he loved Cecile too well to relinquish her. They had many interviews, contrived I know not how, and a secret marriage was arranged and concluded before even the watchful and jealous Lucrece could discover them, or interrupt it; so nothing remained now but for Claude to carry off his bride, to reach the old chateau among the mountains of Beaujolais, and trust to his father's old parental love and pride in his recent bravery for forgiveness.
"A powerful Arab horse, with which Canrobert had presented him (and which had borne a warrior of the Kabyles in many a bloody conflict) was accoutred with a market saddle and pillion to bear the lovers, who were to be disguised as a farmer and his wife, lest monsieur le maire and his workmen might assume arms and fire on them; for the Revolution of two years before had left much bad feeling between the aristocrats and the canaille (as the former most unwisely termed the latter), and thus in the provinces many a lawless act was done that never reached Paris, or figured in the pages of the Moniteur.
"So Claude wore a blue blouse over his uniform, a straw hat, in lieu of the smart scarlet kepi; and Cecile was disguised as a paysanne of Beaujolais. All this was achieved with the assistance of Lucrece. Dull despair had settled on her heart now, and, finding that Cecile was irrevocably the wife of Claude Chaverondier, she could only endeavour to be resigned, and to complete the happiness she had failed to mar or interrupt, and could never hope to enjoy.
"The night on which they were to set forth was dark and tempestuous. Near Beaujeu there rolls a mountain torrent, a tributary of the Saone. It was crossed by a narrow wooden bridge, at a place where, between two high and impending banks, on this night, it was foaming white and furiously, as snows were melting in the mountains, and every tiny rivulet was full to overflowing.
"Lucrece had secured the key of the private gate which closed the end of this bridge, and she was to lock it after the lovers had passed through, and thus bar pursuit in that direction. With a sad heart she issued forth to undo the barrier. So wild was the tempestuous wind that she could barely keep afoot, and she felt her aching heart tremble when she saw the blackness of the fast-flying clouds, between which the pale stars shone coldly forth at intervals; and now she came to where the black and hideous chasm yawned in the rocks, and she could see, far down below, the snow-white flood boiling hoarsely over its stony bed, deep, fierce, and swollen, as it rushed to join the Saone, hurling rocks and trees together to the sea.
"The wild winter flood and the stormy night were both in accordance with the tempestuous spirit that writhed in her bosom. She heard the hoofs of Claude's Arab horse, as their clatter was swept past on the wind, that blew her black, dishevelled hair in disorder about her pallid face; and as she unlocked the gate, a sob of astonishment and terror escaped her.
"The wooden bridge had fallen, or been torn by the tempest from its posts, and the gulf was impassable.
"To warn the lovers was her first good impulse; to be silent was the second.
"As they rode up to thank and bid her adieu, she saw their mutual endearments; she saw the strong arm of Claude caressingly round the waist of Cecile, and her head reposing trustfully on his shoulder, as she sat on the saddle before him. Then a madness seemed to sting the heart of Lucrece! She felt herself to the fullest extent the neglected, the discarded, the unloved one, and revenge and hatred filled her soul with a dreadful fury.
"'Adieu, dear, dear Lucrece!' cried Cecile; 'adieu! and pray for us.'
"'Ride on; the way is clear,' she replied, in a breathless voice.
"And Claude gave the spur to his Arab. Like an arrow it shot past her. In another instant a scream rang upward on the stormy wind, as the horse and its double burden went headlong into the wild abyss of rushing water far below, and disappeared for ever!
"So perished my dear brother Claude, and with him my friend Cecile.
"Lucrece stood there for a time like one bewildered and aghast, for the whole episode resembled a sudden and ghastly dream, from which she might yet awaken. She saw only the river foaming past like a white flood amid the blackening gloom, and its roar seemed deafening and stunning, and she placed her hands on her ears to shut out the sound, as she went slowly home, and for days and nights the roar of the river seemed never to leave her. From that hour she was quite insane, and, if still alive, is an inmate of the lunatic asylum at Beaujeu.
"This double catastrophe had such an effect upon my spirits that, after the death of my father, by the advice of monsieur le cure, I quitted the Chateau de Chaverondier, joined the order to which I now belong, and was soon after sent hither with the army of the East."
Such, as nearly as I can remember, was the sad story of her early life told me by Mademoiselle Chaverondier.
It was not until I began to recover that I became fully aware of the vast debt of gratitude I owed to this good sister of charity, and that I completely knew how much I owed to her sisterly and motherly care of me during that perilous and loathsome disease.
But there were no means of repaying her. Gratitude of the heart was all she would accept, and that I gave her to the full, but now daily, as I became convalescent, and as my brother officers cantered over from the vale of Aladyn to visit me, she left me more and more alone, and there were three whole days during which she never came at all.
I rather think she was scared by Studhome, who had ridden over with a couple of champagne bottles in his holsters, and whom she found smoking in my kiosk, with his shell-jacket open, and his stock off, and singing a song, the first verse of which was something in this style--
My father cared little for shot or shell,
He laughed at death and dangers;
He'd have stormed the very gates of hell,
At the head of the Connaught Rangers.
How much I missed her!
When she did return it was to bid me adieu, and to say that she had been ordered to attach herself to the 45th regiment of the French line, where severe duties awaited her, and that in all human probability I should never see her more.
Those farewell words sounded sadly. We shook hands kindly, affectionately, and parted with tears in our eyes. In my heart I felt the love of a brother for that self-devoted French girl, and at that time she could but little foresee the sad offices I was to render her in the hour of suffering that was to come.
*CHAPTER XXXIV*
Then sacred be their last repose who fall
Bravely and greatly at their duty's call,
Mix with their country's cries the parting breath,
And from the vanguard face her foes in death!
I, too, have known the hour when friendship's tear
Has dewed from British eyes a comrade's bier,
When the rough soldier o'er the lowly cell
Of fallen courage breathed a last farewell,
Paid the last mournful honours to the brave,
And left, with heavy heart, the new-closed grave.
LORD GRENVILLE.
On the 5th of September the allied armies embarked at Varna, and the 14th of the same month saw us landing in the Crimea, on ground near the Lake of Kamishlu--not that chosen by the gallant Lord Raglan originally--some miles north of the Bulganak river, at a place where the cliffs, a hundred feet in height, overhung the beach. But, save a boat-load of Zouaves, who were run down by a steam-transport, all were disembarked safely under cover of the cannon of the allied fleets, and without molestation from the enemy. The change of landing-place was owing to the treachery of the French, who altered the buoys in the night.
Lord Raglan could scarcely forget, what many an old peninsular veteran remembered, that the auspicious day on which we made this landing in the country of the foe was the anniversary of the death of his former leader, the great Duke of Wellington.
We were exactly thirty miles westward of Sebastopol. The morning was fine, and the surface of the Black Sea was smooth as glass. The whole of the troops of the light division were in their boats, in heavy marching order, with sixty rounds per man; packed close, each soldier sat with his firelock between his knees, and the seamen, with their oars out in the rowlocks, all motionless, and awaiting the signal.
It was given, and instantly a hum, rising to a cheer, passed over all that vast array of men and boats; a gleam passed over the bright accoutrements, and the oars fell plashing into the water.
"Give way, lads--lay out upon your oars!" was the order.
And the whole line of boats--a mile in length--shot off from the fleet; and at half-past eight A.M. the first, which belonged to the Britannia, landed her living freight.
Mid-leg deep in the surf, the sailors lent us valuable assistance in getting ashore. Fusiliers, Highlanders, guardsmen and rifles, lancers and hussars, all rapidly formed line upon the beach, where the infantry piled arms, and the cavalry stood by their horses. Those who may have witnessed the trouble and care requisite for the landing of one horse from a vessel, with all the appliances of a spacious quay, can imagine the difficulties attendant on the disembarkation of one thousand chargers, armed and accoutred on an open beach.
The French were landing elsewhere, under St. Arnaud and Canrobert; and ere long, sixty thousand men stood to their arms on that remarkable peninsula, Crim Tartary--of old, the Isle of Kaffa, and known to recent fame as the Crimea!
We were entirely without baggage. Our tents, and everything that might encumber us in advancing to meet the enemy, had been left on board the fleet; thus, few of us had cause to forget the night of the 14th of September, when the army halted to sleep in an open bivouac, on bare ground, for we had learned nothing in the art of conducting a war since Moore fought and fell at Corunna.
Without cessation the drenching rain fell down. Thus our thin uniforms and blankets were speedily soaked; but all ranks suffered in common. I saw the Duke of Cambridge sleeping amid his staff, with his head protected by a little tilt cart. For myself, I chiefly passed that miserable night muffled in my cloak, dismounted, in the ranks beside my horse, with my right arm twisted in the stirrup-leather for support, and my head reposing on the holster flap. Thus I snatched a standing doze, with the cold rain pouring down the nape of my neck; and in this fashion most of the cavalry division passed this night, the effects of which were speedily shown in the ranks of our young and as yet untried army.
Many of our battalions were already in possession of a hill on the right of our landing place, and commanding it; and all the evening of the 14th its sides were brightened by the glitter of their arms shining brightly in the sun (that was then setting in the golden Euxine), as they formed along its green slope in contiguous close columns of regiments.
"But," says an eye-witness, "what were those long strings of soldiery now beginning to come down the hillside, and to wind their way back towards the beach? and what were the long white burdens horizontally carried by the men? Already--already on this same day? Yes, sickness still clung to the army. Of those who only this morning ascended the hill with seeming alacrity, many now came down thus sadly borne by their comrades. They were carried on ambulance stretchers, and a blanket was over them. Those whose faces remained uncovered were still alive. Those whose faces had been covered by their blankets were dead. Near the foot of the hill the men began to dig graves."
Each poor fellow was buried in his uniform and blanket. Thus began our war in the Crimea!
The reason for our tents being left on board was occasioned by the curse of the red-tapeism and ignorance in London. On the outbreak of the conflict, we were destitute alike of the materiel and the personnel for a transport corps of any description whatever, beyond a few Maltese mule carts; and had the Russians availed themselves of the ample time so kindly given them by our ministry, and swept every species of horse and waggon from the Crimea, our advance upon Sebastopol had been a movement of greater difficulty than it proved to be. All our most useful baggage was thus left at Varna, and there I lost with mine much of the lumber with which I had provided myself at Maidstone, and at good Sir Nigel's expense. At last we were on Russian ground. I reminded Studhome of the conduct of Mr. Berkeley, and urged that now a meeting should be arranged beyond the outposts. I remember how palpably Jack changed colour at my angry suggestion. He concealed from me a fact, which afterwards came to my knowledge, that Berkeley had circulated injurious reports concerning me through not only the lancers, but the hussar corps of our brigade. But now Studhome put it to me, as a matter of feeling and discretion, whether I should insist on this secret duel, for a matter that was long past, when we would soon be face to face with the enemy, and when one of us, perhaps both, might not be spared to see another muster day. These arguments prevailed; I smothered my wrath, and met Mr. De Warr Berkeley (as he chose to designate himself) on duty with cold civility, but nothing more. To be cordial was beyond my powers of acting or endurance. And thus, for the time, our quarrel stood. When those who were ignorant of the cause of coolness between us remarked it, his general answer was--
"Aw--haw--don't know the reason, 'pon my soul; but those Scotsmen are such doocid awd fellahs."
Our contingent consisted of twenty-six thousand foot, one thousand mounted cavalry, and sixty pieces of cannon, divided into five divisions of infantry and one of horse; an absurdly small force to attempt an invasion of Russia, even with the greater strength of the French and Turkish allies--the former being thirty thousand, and the latter seven thousand bayonets. Our first division, led by his Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge, consisted of the Grenadier, Coldstream, and Scots Fusilier Guards, with three Highland regiments--the Black Watch, the Cameron, and 93rd Highlanders, all considering themselves the corps d'elite of the army. The other divisions, under Sir George Brown, Sir De Lacy Evans, Sir Richard England, and Sir George Cathcart, were composed of our splendid infantry of the line--as I have elsewhere said--the noble and carefully developed army of forty years of peace; and the Earl of Lucan, who in his youth had served as a volunteer with the Russians against the Turks in the campaigns under Diebitch, led our mounted chivalry--the cavalry division--the flower of the British Isles--yet to be covered with glory in the disastrous Valley of Death! While the armies were advancing, with my troop I was repeatedly despatched by the Quarter-master-General, Major-General Richard Airey, to procure provisions and carriages, for that officer, beyond any other, had seen from the first the necessity of procuring supplies and means of transport. On one of these occasions, by his orders, I had the good fortune to capture twenty-five kibitkas, or waggons, in a village near our line of march. On the same day I think it was that his aide-de-camp, the gallant Nolan, when exploring for water, came upon a Russian government convoy of eighty waggons laden with flour, and seized them all, routing the escort. In all we obtained three hundred and fifty waggons, with their teams and Tartar drivers.
The chief proprietor of the kibitkas I had taken was the patriarch or leading man of the village--a Tartar of venerable aspect, wearing a pelisse or long robe of blue stuff, with a small black lambskin cap, not unlike an Egyptian tarboosh, from under which his white hair flowed upon his shoulders.
Accustomed only to the lawless and brutal military tyranny of the Muscovites and Cossacks, nothing could equal the good man's astonishment when I informed him, by means of an interpreter, that we merely required the loan of the carts, and that he would be duly paid. Allah, ho Ackbar!--think of that--actually paid, for any inconvenience or loss the villagers might suffer by their detention.
On the morning of the 19th we quitted our miserable bivouac, and commenced our march in search of the enemy, for we were on perilous ground, and had the Russians come suddenly upon us, we might have been compelled to risk a battle with our rear to the cliffs which overhung the Euxine (where the sea-calves basked on the beach a hundred feet below), and on a field where defeat would have been certain ruin and death to all. But, as the French had assumed to themselves the honour of the right wing, they had thus a greater risk than we British, who had quietly taken the left flank, as the allies advanced along the coast.
The 11th Hussars and 13th Light Dragoons, under Lord Cardigan, formed an advanced guard; and in their rear marched a detachment of rifles, in extended or skirmishing order. We knew that the enemy was somewhere in front; but in what force, or where or how posted, we were in perfect ignorance. Occasionally an excited voice in the ranks would exclaim that a Russian vedette was in sight on the distant hills.
The atmosphere was calm, the sky almost cloudless, and high into its azure ascended the smoke of the allied fleet, which kept moving under steam far away on the right flank of the French army, which rested on the shore. The sun shone hot and brightly; but at times there came pleasantly a light, fresh breeze from the shining Euxine.
The colours were all uncased and flying; the bands of the cavalry and infantry, with the merry bugles of the rifles, filled the air with music; and I could hear the pipes of the Highlanders, under the Duke of Cambridge, alternately swelling up or dying away upon the ambient air, as the first division traversed the undulating country in front.
As we proceeded, I could not resist letting my horse's reins drop upon his neck, and soaring into dreamland, my thoughts went far away to our distant home beyond the sea. Sometimes I imagined how my name would look in the list of killed or wounded, and of what Louisa Loftus would think then. And with this morbid fancy came always another idea--was it a conviction?--that such an announcement would cause a deeper and more lasting grief in Calderwood Glen than at Chillingham Park; and I thought of my good uncle reading the heavy news to his two faithful old henchmen, Binns, the butler, and Pitblado, the keeper.
Louisa's lock of raven hair which I had received at Calderwood, the miniature which she had sent to me afterwards at the barracks, were with me now; and with me, too, was the memory of those delicious words she had whispered in my ear in the library at Chillingham--
"Till we are both in our graves, dear Newton, you will never, never know how much I love you, and the agony which Berkeley's cunning cost me."
This was strong language: yet it would seem now that, amid the whirl of fashionable life at Chillingham Park, balls, routs, dinners, suppers, and reviews, the race, and the hunting-field dotted with red coats, she had been compelled, or had allowed herself, to forget me--I, who thought of her only. And amid that more brilliant vortex, the world of London life, the Queen's Court, the royal drawing-rooms, the crowded parks, the gaieties of Rotten Row and the Lady's Mile, the splendours of the opera, and the wonders of the Derby, it seemed likely enough that a poor devil of a lancer serving in the East was to be forgotten, and for ever too!
From such a reverie I would be roused by Jocelyn, Sir Harry Scarlett, or some other of ours, exclaiming--
"Look out! By Jove! there's a Russian vedette!"
Then through my field-glass I might discern, between me and the sky, a Cossack in a fur cap, riding along the green ridge in the distance, with his knees up to his girdle, his back bent, his lance-head glinting in the sunshine, and the snub nose of his Calmuck visage planted almost between the drooping ears of his shaggy little horse, as he uttered a shrill whoop and galloped away.
"We seem to be coming closer and closer to those fellows," said the colonel. "Every moment I expect to see Cardigan with the advanced guard draw the cover, and receive a dose of grape from flying artillery."
"And those vedettes seem to be thrown forward from a large force, colonel," said Studhome. "I have already detected five or six different uniforms."
"Yes, Jack. So I would advise you to write a dutiful letter to your friends."
"Why, colonel?" said our adjutant, laughing.
"Because we shall certainly be under fire to-morrow."
To-morrow proved to be the day of the Alma--an eventful day for many.
The approach of danger made all who were in health grow high in spirit and hilarity.
"Rather different work this from the gravelled yards at Canterbury and Maidstone," said Wilford, joining us at a canter, to share a little conversation.
"Ay, Fred," said the colonel; "and very different from our daily service of a year or so ago."
"At Allahabad and Agra--eh?"
"Yes. Lying half the day on an easy fauteuil, in a silk shirt and cotton drawers, fanned by an Indian girl; or cooled by a punkah, and guarded by mosquito-curtains, making up our books on the Meerut race meeting; calculating the rising or falling of the thermometer, and studying the 'Army List?'"
(Another year or two was to see very different work cut out at Cawnpore and Delhi for our Indian comrades.)
Five nights spent amid the mud of our bivouac had somewhat tarnished the finery of our lancer uniforms. Already the bullion of our large epaulettes was crushed and torn, our gorgeous lace defaced and frayed; but our horses were all in high condition, and our arms and appointments bright enough to have satisfied even Count Tilly himself.
On this short day's march we lost one lancer of Wilford's troop. Passing where a Coldstream guardsman lay by the wayside, black in visage, and dying of weakness, thirst, and heat, he gave him the entire contents of his wooden canteen, and falling from his saddle soon after, died himself for lack of that which he had so generously given another, as there was not a drop of water with the regiment; for, in the Crimea, by the end of August, all springs, rivulets, and fountains are alike dried up; verdure disappears, and the thermometer, even in the shade, rises to 98 or 100 degrees.
Twice on this march I saw a sister of charity kneeling beside the sick or dying, and rode on to learn whether she might prove to be Mademoiselle Chaverondier, or, as I preferred to call her, my dear sister Archange, but on both occasions I was disappointed. All were high in courage, and full of ardour; but their spirit changed and sunk as the hot and breathless day wore on, and our poor men's strength became worn out. The music ceased, as band after band gave in, and the drummers slung their drums wearily on their backs. Even the Scotch bagpipes died away, and the massed columns, each some five thousand strong, trod silently over the undulating steppes, with all their sloped arms, and the glazed tops of their shakos, glittering in the sun. But long ere the noon of that first day of toil, many had begun to fall out, in all the agonies of cholera. At one place my horse had actually to pick his way among them. All looked black in the face, and choking; the heavy bearskin caps and thick leather stocks were cast aside, and their jackets were torn open. Some were writhing in agony, and others, weakened by toil and thirst, lay still and voiceless. On we marched, on and on, and the sufferers were left to the Cossack lances, or a more lingering death, while the wolves from the groves of the Alma, and the Alpine vulture and kite from the rocks of Kamishlu, hung on our skirts, and waited for their prey. Our thirst was intense and indescribable, when a shout of joy announced that the advanced guard, under Lord Cardigan, had reached that long-wished-for river the Bulganak, where we were to bivouac for the night. The moment a division came in sight of the cool stream that rippled between its green banks, and groves of wild olive and pomegranate trees, the men burst with a shout from the ranks, and rushed forward to slake their burning and agonizing thirst.
In one brigade a stronger governance was maintained. Sir Colin Campbell would not allow that even the rage of thirst should loosen the discipline of his splendid Highland regiments. He halted them a little before they reached the stream, and so ordered it that, by being saved from the confusion that would have been wrought by their own wild haste, they gained in comfort, and knew that they were gainers. When men toil in organized masses, they owe what well-being they have to wise and firm commanders."--Kinglake's "Invasion of the Crimea," vol. ii.
The infantry were speedily bivouacked along the bank of the stream; but we--the cavalry--were fated to have a little passage at arms with the Russians before the sun set.
*CHAPTER XXXV*
Sword at my left side gleaming!
Why is thy keen glance beaming,
So fondly bent on mine?
Thanks for that smile of thine. Hurrah!
Borne by a trooper daring,
My looks his fire-glance wearing,
I arm a freeman's hand,
That well delights thy brand! Hurrah!
THEODORE KOeRNER.
Physical endurance is not a more necessary quality to the soldier than mental elasticity. There seemed to be no want of the latter among our fellows, when we unbitted our horses and sat down to a meal which was improvised by our servants near a grove of turpentine and caper trees. It was a lovely evening now, and many a wreath of purple and golden cloud lay cradled in the amber sunset. The infantry had piled their arms by regiments, brigades, and divisions, and the thousands of our host lay panting on the sward, or preparing to cook their rations in such a fashion as suited the emergency or their fancy. In the distance were flocks of bustards crossing the now arid plain, which in summer had been covered by a profusion of aromatic herbs. Our accoutrements were cast on the grass, our uniforms were unbuttoned, cigar-cases went from, hand to hand, freely interchanged, and even the last copies of Punch were conned over and laughed at.
Thanks to me, and the use of a kabitka I procured, we had plenty of provisions. A ham, some cold fowls, Bass's pale ale, sherry, even champagne, were produced by some of ours; and these, with a few cucumbers and gourds, medlars, and filberts, which Willie Pitblado had found in the deserted garden of a Tartar, formed, all things considered, a sumptuous repast, and what it lacked in style and equipage was amply made up for in fun and jollity, for "men accommodate themselves unconsciously to the modes of living that are forced upon them. It is a law of our being, and it is well that it should be so. A bomb bursting in the midst of a fashionable London dinner party would do no more mischief than one of the numbers which used to burst daily within the walls of Lucknow; but assuredly it would produce a far greater impression."
"This is really the tug of war!" exclaimed Wilford, who, after various ineffectual efforts to uncork a champagne bottle, adroitly struck off its head by the stroke of a knife.
"Yes, by Jove! and think of the mess!" added Jocelyn.
"To feel," said the colonel, "that one has a soul--and what is more, an appetite, a taste, and decided predilection for turtle soup and recherche entrees--and yet compelled to appreciate this style of thing!"
"I can appreciate everything and anything," exclaimed the paymaster.
"Even an 'aggis, eh?--haw!" said Berkeley.
"Yes, even a haggis. My stomach is as empty as a kettledrum," replied the paymaster, as he sliced away at the ham.
"I think there is something going on in front," observed Wilford, pausing in the act of dissecting a fowl.
"Yes," said Beverley; "Lord Raglan, with some squadrons of the 11th and 13th, has crossed the river to reconnoitre; but let us make the most of the present, our turn will come all in good time. Pass the wine, M'Goldrick; a slice of meat, Studhome--thanks."
"Ugh!" remarked the paymaster; "'the bed of honour,' as Jean Paul Richter says, 'since whole regiments lie on it, and frequently have received their last unction, should really be filled anew, beaten and sunned.'"
"What--aw, haw--does that quotation mean?" asked Berkeley, adjusting his eyeglass, contracting the muscles of his eye, and giving our old Scots paymaster an inquiring and quizzical stare. "It sounds doocid queer, and--haw--unpleasant."
"I was thinking of the hard bed I shall sleep on to-night, sir," replied M'Goldrick, rather sternly.
"By Jove, some of us may sleep sound enough to-night yet," said the colonel, half starting up. "There is a decided movement in front, and here comes a French mounted officer."
At that moment a subaltern of Zouaves, mounted on a French dragoon horse, in a somewhat excited manner, dashed up to where we lay lounging on the grass, reined his trooper sharply in on the bit, shouting something of which I could only make out the prefix, "Messieurs les officiers!"
"Diable! you don't speak French?" he added, in English, to Travers of ours.
"No, sir; I am sorry----"
"Peste!" interrupted the Frenchman; "every staff officer should speak at least two European languages."
"Dioul na bocklish! There, I can speak my mother tongue, being an Irishman; and if that won't do, the devil is in it. But I am not a staff officer," he added, to the stranger, in whom I now recognized M. Jolicoeur, of the 2nd Zouaves.
"The enemy is in great force in front, and your commander-in-chief, with the two regiments of your advanced guard, will be surrounded and cut off."
"Lord Raglan, with the 11th and 13th!" we exclaimed, starting to our feet; and just at that moment an aide-de-camp, Captain Bolton, of the 1st Dragoon Guards, came galloping up, and exclaimed--
"Boot and saddle, Colonel Beverley; the 11th and 13th, under Lord Cardigan, are engaged in front. Cavalry supports and horse artillery are instantly required."
The trumpets sounded, the regiment formed by troops, and joined the brigade, which formed in squadrons, and advanced rapidly in search of the enemy.
"Aw--doocid bore, after our pleasant little tiffin," I heard Berkeley say, with a bantering air; but I could see that he looked very white for all that, and Beverley only smiled superciliously, as he twisted his thick moustaches.
"I wonder Berkeley has not his white gloves on," he whispered to me, and I saw some of our men smiling, for it was a regimental joke, or notoriety, that he was in the habit of pencilling on his gloves the words of command he had to issue in succession.
As the junior regiment, we were in the centre of the brigade, the senior corps being on the right, and the next in seniority on the left; and we advanced at a rapid trot, in a column of squadrons at wheeling distance, while the artillery, making a dreadful clatter, with all their tumbrils limbered up, their spare wheels, forge waggons, rammers, sponges, buckets, and other apparatus, went thundering at full gallop to the front.
"In a few minutes, my lads, we may be hand to hand with the enemy," shouted Beverley, as he stood up in his stirrups and brandished his sword; "let us be true to the old motto of the regiment!"
All knew what he meant, and responded by a long and ringing cheer, for our lancers had been raised as light dragoons in 1759, by Colonel John Hale, the officer who came to London with the news of Wolfe's fall and victory at Quebec; and in that year it was ordered by his Majesty George II. that "on the front of the men's caps, and on the left breast of their uniforms, there was to be a death's head, with two crossbones over it, and underneath the motto, 'Or Glory.'" And this grim but significant badge we still wear on all our appointments. It would appear that, early in the afternoon, and before the whole army had halted, our old and one-armed leader, the good Lord Raglan, who had ridden far in advance of the first division of infantry, observed a group of Cossacks hovering on the brow of a green hill, towards the south, on which he ordered part of Lord Cardigan's command, the 11th Hussars and 13th Light Dragoons, forward to reconnoitre. On this occasion Lord Lucan was also present.
Our predecessors in the service were the old Scots 17th Light Dragoons, raised at Edinburgh in the winter of 1759, during the alarm of the projected invasion under the Marechal Duc d'Aiguillon, by Sholto, Lord Aberdour, afterwards sixteenth Earl Morton, who died in Sicily in 1774. This corps, which never consisted of more than two troops, served in the Seven Years' War, and was disbanded in 1763. One of its officers, Lieutenant the Honourable Sir T. Maitland, son of the Earl of Lauderdale, died so lately as 1824, a lieutenant-general, G.C.B., governor of Malta and the Ionian Isles.
Where the road from Eupatoria to Sebastopol crosses the Bulganak, the bank of the river rises for several hundred yards, and then the ground slopes down into a valley, beyond which rises a succession of grassy undulations. The hussars and light dragoons rode boldly forward. Formed in four squadrons, they splashed through the stream, galloped up the bank, and descended into the hollow, before they became aware that no less than two thousand Russian cavalry were advancing to meet them, with a line of skirmishers in front in extended order.
"Forward, skirmishers!" was now the command.
The trumpet sounded, and from the flanks of each squadron, as it halted to form line, the few selected men for this duty spread at intervals of twenty yards from each other, at the distance of two hundred yards from the column; sheathing their swords and unslinging their carbines, as they took up their dressing from the right. Beyond the crest of the second eminence, a steady glittering in the sunshine revealed to the keen eyes of General Airey that it came from the points--the mere tips--of fixed bayonets, and that there were concealed in the hollow way many battalions of an infantry force, quietly waiting to open a close and murderous fire upon our little body of cavalry, when they were lured sufficiently far forward to secure their total destruction. In fact, our advanced guard, composed of only two slender regiments, was thus suddenly opposed to six thousand men of the 17th Russian division, posted in ambush, with two batteries of artillery, a brigade of regular cavalry, and nine sotnias of Cossacks, the whole under General Carlovitch Baur. It was a perilous--a terrible dilemma! Lord Raglan knew that he must avoid an action on one hand, and secure the retreat of the 11th and 13th with complete honour on the other. To the roughly-mounted and loosely-handled Russian horsemen, the beautiful and ceremonious formation of our gay hussars, with their glittering dolmans, and our smart light dragoons in blue and buff, with all their swords and bright appointments flashing in the sunshine, was a cause of hesitation. They could not suppose but that this slender force had a greater body of troops at hand, and feared the very snare they were preparing for others; thus they were quietly and tranquilly confronting each other, out of musket-range, when we, with the light and second division, the 8th Hussars, and nine-pounder batteries, came up at a gallop, to succour our comrades, and got into position. After this, the wily and savage Muscovites found their opportunity gone, and the gallant Baur was rather nonplussed.
