right out
in the open fields that we ventured to halt, and to see what injuries we
had sustained. For me, wounded and weary as I was, my heart was beating
proudly, and my chest was nearly bursting my tunic to think that I,
Etienne Gerard, had left this gang of murderers so much by which to
remember me. My faith, they would think twice before they ventured again
to lay hands upon one of the Third Hussars. So carried away was I that I
made a small oration to these brave Englishmen, and told them who it was
that they had helped to rescue. I would have spoken of glory also, and
of the sympathies of brave men, but the officer cut me short.

'That's all right,' said he. 'Any injuries, Sergeant?'

'Trooper Jones's horse hit with a pistol bullet on the fetlock.'

'Trooper Jones to go with us. Sergeant Halliday, with troopers Harvey
and Smith, to keep to the right until they touch the vedettes of the
German Hussars.'

So these three jingled away together, while the officer and I, followed
at some distance by the trooper whose horse had been wounded, rode
straight down in the direction of the English camp. Very soon we had
opened our hearts, for we each liked the other from the beginning. He
was of the nobility, this brave lad, and he had been sent out scouting
by Lord Wellington to see if there were any signs of our advancing
through the mountains. It is one advantage of a wandering life like
mine, that you learn to pick up those bits of knowledge which
distinguish the man of the world. I have, for example, hardly ever met a
Frenchman who could repeat an English title correctly. If I had not
travelled I should not be able to say with confidence that this young
man's real name was Milor the Hon. Sir Russell, Bart., this last being
an honourable distinction, so that it was as the Bart that I usually
addressed him, just as in Spanish one might say 'the Don.'

As we rode beneath the moonlight in the lovely Spanish night, we spoke
our minds to each other, as if we were brothers. We were both of an age,
you see, both of the light cavalry also (the Sixteenth Light Dragoons
was his regiment), and both with the same hopes and ambitions. Never
have I learned to know a man so quickly as I did the Bart. He gave me
the name of a girl whom he had loved at a garden called Vauxhall, and,
for my own part, I spoke to him of little Coralie, of the Opera. He took
a lock of hair from his bosom, and I a garter. Then we nearly quarrelled
over hu