urra! but a hoarse, hungry roar, such as you hear in wild
beasts' dens before feeding-time. An old troop-sergeant, a rigid pious
Presbyterian, spoke for the rest, grinding and gnashing his teeth:
'We'll follow the captain any where--follow him to hell!'" (Harry's
voice had all along been subdued, but it was almost a whisper now:) "I
do hope those words were not reckoned against poor Donald Macpherson,
for when we got back his was one of the thirteen empty saddles. So we
broke up, and went in again at the Sikhs, who were collecting in
black-looking knots and irregular squares all round. It was an
indescribable sort of a _melee_, every man for himself, and--I dare not
say--God for us all. I suppose I was as bad as the rest when once fairly
launched, and we all thought we were doing our duty; but I should not
like to have so many lives on my head and hand as Royston could count
that night. Remember _we_ suffered rather severely.

"As we took up our position again I saw the colonel was not well
pleased. He had little of the romance of war about him, and did not
understand his officers acting much on their own discretion. Without
hearing the words, I could guess, from the expression of his hard old
face, that he came down on the squadron-leader heavily. When I ranged up
by Keene's side soon afterward, he looked up at me absently. 'I was
thinking,' he said (now one naturally expected a sentiment about the
scene we had just gone through, or a reflection on the injustice of
chiefs in general)--'I was thinking what rubbish those army-cutlers
sell, and call it a sword-blade.' He held up a sort of apology for a
sabre, all notched, and bent, and blunted; then he began to inquire if I
had been hit at all. I had escaped with hardly a scratch; but I saw an
ugly cut above his knee, and blood stealing down his bridle-arm. 'Bah!
it's nothing,' Royston observed, answering the direction of my eyes;
'but--if the tulwar and the reprimand had both been sharper--confess,
Hal, that this time, _Le jeu valait bien la chandelle?_'

"We never had a real rattling charge after that day, at least none
exciting enough to warm him thoroughly. Now I am very sorry I have told
you all this: it is not a nice story; but it is your own fault if I have
bored you. Besides, Madame de Verzenay will never forgive me for
monopolizing you so long. I do think she does me the honor to believe in
a flirtation."

Cecil's heightened color and sparkling eyes might have