breed--a race of equine kings--flowing
as without taint or cross from him that was the pride and wealth of the
whole tribe of desert rangers, expressed itself in her. I need not say
that I shared her mood. I sympathized in her every step. I entered into
all her royal humors. I patted her neck and spoke loving and cheerful
words to her. I called her my beauty, my pride, my pet. And did she not
understand me? Every word! Else why that listening ear turned back to
catch my softest whisper; why the responsive quiver through the frame,
and the low, happy neigh? 'Well,' I exclaimed, as I leaped from her back
at the close of the review--alas! that words spoken in lightest mood
should portend so much!--'well, Gulnare, if you should die, your life
has had its triumph. The nation itself, through its admiring capital,
has paid tribute to your beauty, and death can never rob you of your
fame. And I patted her moist neck and foam-flecked shoulders, while the
grooms were busy with head and loins.

"That night our brigade made its bivouac just over Long Bridge, almost
on the identical spot where four years before I had camped my company of
three months' volunteers. With what experiences of march and battle were
those four years filled! For three of these years Gulnare had been my
constant companion. With me she had shared my tent, and not rarely my
rations, for in appetite she was truly human, and my steward always
counted her as one of our 'mess.' Twice had she been wounded--once at
Fredericksburg, through the thigh; and once at Cold Harbor, where a
piece of shell tore away a part of her scalp. So completely did it stun
her, that for some months I thought her dead, but to my great joy she
shortly recovered her senses. I had the wound carefully dressed by our
brigade surgeon, from whose care she came in a month with the edges of
the wound so nicely united that the eye could with difficulty detect the
scar. This night, as usual, she lay at my side, her head almost touching
mine. Never before, unless when on a raid and in face of the enemy, had
I seen her so uneasy. Her movements during the night compelled
wakefulness on my part. The sky was cloudless, and in the dim light I
lay and watched her. Now she would stretch herself at full length, and
rub her head on the ground. Then she would start up, and, sitting on her
haunches, like a dog, lift one foreleg and paw her neck and ears. Anon
she would rise to her feet and shake herself, walk o