I am
unable to see or speak to you.

"Still, if these pages should ever meet your eyes, your generous heart
will throb at the name of the intrepid being, to whom I am this day
indebted for my life, and to whom I may thus perhaps owe the happiness of
seeing you again--you and my child--for of course our child lives. Yes,
it must be--for else, poor wife, what an existence would be yours amid
the horrors of exile! Dear soul! he must now be fourteen. Whom does he
resemble? Is he like you? Has he your large and beautiful blue
eyes?--Madman that I am! how many times, in this long day-book, have I
already asked the same idle question, to which you can return no
answer!--How many times shall I continue to ask it?--But you will teach
our child to speak and love the somewhat savage name of Djalma."

"Djalma!" said Rose, as with moist eyes she left off reading.

"Djalma!" repeated Blanche, who shared the emotion of her sister. "Oh, we
shall never forget that name."

"And you will do well, my children; for it seems to be the name of a
famous soldier, though a very young one. But go on, my little Rose!"

"I have told you in the preceding pages, my dear Eva, of the two glorious
days we had this month. The troops of my old friend, the prince, which
daily make fresh advances in European discipline, have performed wonders.
We have beaten the English, and obliged them to abandon a portion of this
unhappy country, which they had invaded in contempt of all the rights of
justice, and which they continue to ravage without mercy, for, in these
parts, warfare is another name for treachery, pillage, and massacre. This
morning, after a toilsome march through a rocky and mountainous district,
we received information from our scouts, that the enemy had been
reinforced, and was preparing to act on the offensive; and, as we were
separated from them by a distance of a few leagues only, an engagement
became inevitable. My old friend the prince, the father of my deliverer,
was impatient to march to the attack. The action began about three
o'clock; it was very bloody and furious. Seeing that our men wavered for
a moment, for they were inferior in number, and the English
reinforcements consisted of fresh troops, I charged at the head of our
weak reserve of cavalry. The old prince was in the centre, fighting, as
he always fights, intrepidly; his son, Djalma, scarcely eighteen, as
brave as his father, did not leave my side. In the hottest part of the