large
felt hats, bound with iron, and all of them leather jerkins, of every
possible shade and colour, which long service in rain, dust, and
bivouacing had imparted to them. Upon a closer inspection, there were
two things which particularly distinguished them from the rest of their
comrades. They had neither gun nor pike, which were the ordinary
weapons of the lansquenet, but wore rapiers of uncommon length and
breadth. They also carried in their hats and helmets, in fashion with
the nobility and leaders of armies of those days, cock's tail feathers
of various colours, assuming to themselves the rank of superiority.

These five men, particularly one who was seated with his back to the
tree, appeared much interested in the game which they were playing. He
wore a hat with a brim of the breadth of a good sized millstone,
trimmed with dingy gold lace, and ornamented in front with a gilt
portrait of Saint Peter, out of which sprang two enormous red cock's
feathers. His language was a compound of French, Italian, and
Hungarian, put together in such strange mixture, that he was scarcely
intelligible to those to whom he addressed himself. No one knew what
country gave him birth; but he commanded a certain respect among his
comrades from the fact of his having served in most of the armies of
Europe, and been in nearly all the campaigns of his day; and as he
generally prefaced most of his phrases with oaths which he had picked
up in the countries he had passed through, and which he pronounced
after his own fashion, he thought to render himself thereby of more
consequence among those over whom he had assumed the title of general.
His beard was dressed in the Hungarian fashion, for being twisted up
with pitch, it stuck out on both sides from under his nose a whole
span's breadth in the air, much like two iron spikes.

"_Canto cacramento!_" cried this man, with a threatening bass voice,
"the little knave is mine; I'll cut him with the king of spades!"

"It's mine, with your permission," cried his neighbour, "and the king
into the bargain; there's the queen of spades!"

"Morbleu!" vociferated the other, in a rage; "do you want to take the
trick from your commander, Captain Loeffler? For shame, for shame! he is
a rebel who dares do that. May my soul be punished, but you want to
take the command away from me." The general, for such he was, frowned
furiously, pushed his hat off his ears, and discovered a large red scar
on his foreh