and the soldiers drank on, while their
companions danced and shouted to the gay sounds. All was feasting and
revelry within the town.

But without, upon the battle-field, what painful sounds hailed the
fall of evening?--it was the fearful groans of the dying! What sad
thoughts called forth those sighs from the parting spirit! Home,
glory, mother, and beloved ones,--never to meet again! The evening
breeze bears them away: whither?

An officer of hussars went over the field with a military surgeon,
while his soldiers bore the wounded away on their arms.

The young officer turned mournfully from one sad spectacle to another.
Here lay a young soldier in the bloom of youth, the point of a sword
had pierced through his cuirass and come out behind; and from whose
hand had that thrust come? a little farther, lay another, whose face
was so cut, and disfigured by the dust, that none could have
recognised it! and now his eye rested on a young hussar who lay on his
back, his outstretched arm still grasping his sword, over which the
fingers were closed so stiffly that it was impossible to release it;
near him an old soldier had died, with his arm around the neck of his
horse, which had been killed along with him, like two old comrades
whom death could not part.

The young officer carefully surveyed the field, and his quick eye
passed none over. He had reached a little knoll, where, half concealed
among some bushes, a white form seemed to move. It was a young
cuirassier officer, who lay with his face buried in the long grass.

The hussar knelt down to raise his head, and called for assistance.

"Thanks, comrade!" said the dying youth faintly, as he turned his face
towards him.

The last rays of the setting sun shone on the handsome, pale
countenance, the closing eyes, and the deep wound just below the
heart.

"Laszlo!" groaned the hussar, "is it thus we meet?"

"Lay me on the grass, brother; I am dying," said the cuirassier
faintly. "Alas! my bride will wait in vain!"

The surgeons examined the wound, and pronounced it mortal; he had but
a few moments to live.

"Tell my bride," said the young man, in scarcely audible accents,
"that my last thought was of her--and bury me where she may come
and"--

The young hussar sobbed bitterly beside his dying friend. "Alas! that
we must part--that one of us must die!"

"God bless you, brother--be happy!" murmured Laszlo, convulsively
grasping Gejza's hand; "poor Aniko!" and his