rg, when Major Legendre came into my room in the post-house with
an open paper in his hand.

'You are to leave me,' said he, with despair upon his face.

It was no very great grief to me to do that, for he was, if I may say
so, hardly worthy to have such a subaltern. I saluted, however, in
silence.

'It is an order from General Lasalle,' he continued; 'you are to
proceed to Rossel instantly, and to report yourself at the headquarters
of the regiment.'

No message could have pleased me better. I was already very well thought
of by my superior officers. It was evident to me, therefore, that this
sudden order meant that the regiment was about to see service once more,
and that Lasalle understood how incomplete my squadron would be without
me. It is true that it came at an inconvenient moment, for the keeper of
the post-house had a daughter--one of those ivory-skinned, black-haired
Polish girls--with whom I had hoped to have some further talk. Still, it
is not for the pawn to argue when the fingers of the player move him
from the square; so down I went, saddled my big black charger, Rataplan,
and set off instantly upon my lonely journey.

My word, it was a treat for those poor Poles and Jews, who have so
little to brighten their dull lives, to see such a picture as that
before their doors! The frosty morning air made Rataplan's great black
limbs and the beautiful curves of his back and sides gleam and shimmer
with every gambade. As for me, the rattle of hoofs upon a road, and the
jingle of bridle chains which comes with every toss of a saucy head,
would even now set my blood dancing through my veins. You may think,
then, how I carried myself in my five-and-twentieth year--I, Etienne
Gerard, the picked horseman and surest blade in the ten regiments of
hussars. Blue was our colour in the Tenth--a sky-blue dolman and pelisse
with a scarlet front--and it was said of us in the army that we could
set a whole population running, the women towards us, and the men away.
There were bright eyes in the Riesenberg windows that morning which
seemed to beg me to tarry; but what can a soldier do, save to kiss his
hand and shake his bridle as he rides upon his way?

It was a bleak season to ride through the poorest and ugliest country in
Europe, but there was a cloudless sky above, and a bright, cold sun,
which shimmered on the huge snowfields. My breath reeked into the
frosty air, and Rataplan sent up two feathers of steam from his