hare in the battle. He was in
what Austrians call Stockhaus arrest, and under sentence either of death
or imprisonment for life, for treason. Well, he got out somehow, and
followed his regiment on foot till such time as one of his comrades was
knocked over; then he mounted, and I promise you he knew his work in
the saddle. Twice he charged a half-battery of twelves, and sabred our
gunners where they stood; and when at last we pushed the Austrian column
across the bridge, instead of retreating, as he might, he trusted to
saving himself by the river. It was then his horse was shot under him,
as he descended the bank, and over they both rolled into the stream. I
assure you it was no easy matter to capture him even then, and we took
him under a shower of balls from his comrades, that showed how little
his life was deemed, in comparison with the opportunity of damaging us.
When he was brought in, he was a pitiable object; his forehead was laid
open from a sabre cut, his collar-bone and left arm broken by the fall,
and a gunshot wound in the thigh, which the surgeon affirmed had every
appearance of being received early in the action. He would n't tell us
his name, or anything about his friends, for he wished to have written
to them; the only words he ever uttered were a faint attempt at 'Hurrah
for the Emperor!'"

"And this a Hungarian?" said D'Esmonde, in surprise.

"He might have been a Pole, or a Wallach, for anything I know; but he
was a hussar, and as gallant a fellow as ever I saw."

"What was the uniform, my Lord?" asked the Abbe.

"Light blue, with a green chako,--they call them the regiment of Prince
Paul of Wurtemberg."

"Tell me his probable age, my Lord; and something of his appearance
generally," said D'Esmonde, with increasing earnestness.

"His age I should guess to be two or three and twenty,--not more,
certainly, and possibly even less than that In height he is taller than
I, but slighter. As to face, even with all his scars and bruises, he
looked a handsome fellow, and had a clear blue eye that might have
become an Englishman."

"You did not hear him speak?" asked the priest, with heightening
curiosity.

"Except the few words I have mentioned, he never uttered a syllable. We
learned that he had broken his arrest from one of his comrades; but the
fellow, seeing our anxiety to hear more, immediately grew reserved, and
would tell us nothing. I merely allude to the circumstance to show that
the disaffe