racture had been a severe one, the
bone having protruded through the skin. The broken parts had knitted
with great difficulty, and the leg would never be as firm and as elastic
as before. Besides, the fracture had slightly shortened the lower leg.
His circus career was therefore ended, and he attributed his misfortune
to the ill-omened letter Y.

Just about the time of his greatest despondency war was declared between
Russia and Turkey. The Turkish embassadors were drumming up recruits all
over Western Europe. News came to the circus boarding-house that good
riders were wanted for the Turkish mounted gensdarmes. Nagy resolved to
enlist, and we went together to the Turkish embassy. He was enrolled
after only a superficial examination, and was directed to present
himself on the following day to embark for Constantinople. He begged me
to go with him to the rendezvous, and there I bade him adieu. As I was
shaking his hand he showed me the certificate given him by the Turkish
embassador. It bore the date of May 25, and at the bottom was a
signature in Turkish characters, which could be readily distorted by the
imagination into a rude and scrawling Y.

A series of events occurring immediately after Nagy left for
Constantinople resulted in my own unexpected departure in a civil
capacity for the seat of war in the Russian lines. The line of curious
coincidences in the experience of the circus-rider had impressed me very
much at the time, but in the excitement of the Turkish campaign I
entirely forgot the circumstance. I do not, indeed, recall any thought
of Nagy during the first five months in the field. The day after the
fall of Plevna I rode through the deserted earthworks toward the town.
The dead were lying where they had fallen in the dramatic and useless
sortie of the day before. The dead on a battle-field always excite fresh
interest, no matter if the spectacle be an every-day one, and as I rode
slowly along I studied the attitudes of the fallen bodies, speculating
on the relation between the death-poses and the last impulse that had
animated the living frame. Behind a rude barricade of wagons and
household goods, part of the train of non-combatants which Osman Pasha
had ordered to accompany the army in the sortie, a great number of dead
lay in confusion. The peculiar position of one of these instantly
attracted my eye. He had fallen on his face against the barricade, with
both arms stretched above his head, evidently k