indemnity!"

The third Captain was at his post before the host got back, and whatever
the performance of his predecessors, it was nothing to his. The pasty
disappeared like magic, the fricandeau seemed to have melted away like
snow before the sun; while he drank, indiscriminately, Hock, Hermitage,
and Bordeaux, as though he were a camel, victualling himself for a three
weeks' tramp in the desert.

[Illustration: 372]

The poor host now walked round the board, and surveyed the "debris" of
the feast, with a sad heart. Of all the joints which he hoped to have
seen cold on the shelves of his larder, some ruined fragments alone
remained. Here was the gable end of a turkey--there, the side wall of a
sirloin; on one side, the broken roof of a pasty; on the other, the bare
joists of a rib of beef. It was the Palmyra of things eatable, and a sad
and melancholy sight to gaze on.

"What comes next, good host?" cried the third Captain, as he wiped his
lips with his napkin.

"Next!" cried the host, in horror, "Hagel und regen! thou canst not eat
more, surely!"

"I don't know that," replied the other, "the air of these mountains
freshens the appetite--I might pick a little of something sweet."

With a groan of misery, the poor host placed a plum pie before the
all-devouring stranger, and then, as if to see that no legerdemain
was practised, stationed himself directly in front, and watched every
morsel, as he put it into his mouth. No, the thing was all fair, he
ate like any one else, grinding his food and smacking his lips, like
an ordinary mortal. The host looked down on the floor, and beneath the
cloth of the table--what was that for? Did he suspect the stranger had a
tail?

"A glass of mulled claret with cloves!" said the frenchman, "and then
you may bring the dessert."

"The Heavens be praised!" cried the host as he swept the last fragments
of the table into a wide tray, and left the room.

"Egad! I thought you had forgotten me altogether, Captain," said a
stout, fat fellow, as he squeezed himself with difficulty through the
window, and took his seat at the table. This was the Quarter-master
of the Regiment, and celebrated for his appetite throughout the whole
brigade.

"Ach Gott! how he is swelled out!" was the first exclamation of the
host, as he re-entered the room; "and no wonder either, when one thinks
of what he has eaten."

"How now, what's this?" shouted the Quarter-master, as he saw the
dessert arrangin