cIver, and, in spite of
his "gay costume," after six months he left the Egyptian service. His
honorable discharge was signed by Stone Bey, who, in the favor of the
Khedive, had supplanted General Mott.

It is a curious fact that, in spite of his ill health, immediately after
leaving Cairo, MacIver was sufficiently recovered to at once plunge into
the Franco-Prussian War. At the battle of Orleans, while on the staff
of General Chanzy, he was wounded. In this war his rank was that of a
colonel of cavalry of the auxiliary army.

His next venture was in the Carlist uprising of 1873, when he formed a
Carlist League, and on several occasions acted as bearer of important
messages from the "King," as Don Carlos was called, to the sympathizers
with his cause in France and England.

MacIver was promised, if he carried out successfully a certain mission
upon which he was sent, and if Don Carlos became king, that he would be
made a marquis. As Don Carlos is still a pretender, MacIver is still a
general. Although in disposing of his sword MacIver never allowed his
personal predilections to weigh with him, he always treated himself to a
hearty dislike of the Turks, and we next find him fighting against them
in Herzegovina with the Montenegrins. And when the Servians declared
war against the same people, MacIver returned to London to organize a
cavalry brigade to fight with the Servian army.

Of this brigade and of the rapid rise of MacIver to highest rank and
honors in Servia, the scrap-book is most eloquent. The cavalry brigade
was to be called the Knights of the Red Cross.

In a letter to the editor of the _Hour_, the general himself speaks of
it in the following terms:

"It may be interesting to many of your readers to learn that a select
corps of gentlemen is at present in course of organization under
the above title with the mission of proceeding to the Levant to
take measures in case of emergency for the defense of the Christian
population, and more especially of British subjects who are to a great
extent unprovided with adequate means of protection from the religious
furies of the Mussulmans. The lives of Christian women and children are
in hourly peril from fanatical hordes. The Knights will be carefully
chosen and kept within strict military control, and will be under
command of a practical soldier with large experience of the Eastern
countries. Templars and all other crusaders are invited to give aid and
sympathy."