greater care of his
invaluable life, and hint that if any calamity occurred to him, the
campaign would _ipso facto_ come to an end. Andreas knew that MacGahan
was quizzing him, but it was exceedingly droll how he purred and bridled
under the light touch of that genial humourist, whose merits his own
countrymen, to my thinking, have never adequately recognised. The old
story of a prophet having scant honour in his own country.

[Illustration: "CROSSED THE GAP HAND OVER HAND."]

After the long strain of the desperate but futile attack made by the
Russians on Plevna in the early part of the September of the war, I fell
a victim to the malarial fever of the Lower Danube, and had to be
invalided back to Bucharest. The illness grew upon me, and my condition
became very serious. Worthy Andreas nursed me with great tenderness and
assiduity in the lodgings to which I had been brought, since they would
not accept a fever patient at Brofft's. After some days of wretchedness
I became delirious, and, of course, lost consciousness; my last
recollection was of Andreas wetting my parched lips with lemonade. When
I recovered my senses, and looked out feebly, there was nobody in the
room. How long I had been unconscious I had no idea. I lay there in a
half stupor till evening, unable from weakness to summon any assistance.
In the dusk came the English doctor who had been attending me. "Where is
Andreas?" he asked. I could not tell him. "He was here last night," he
said; "you have been delirious for seven days." The woman of the house
was summoned. She had not seen Andreas since the previous night, but,
busy about her own domestic affairs, had no suspicion until she entered
the room that Andreas was not with me still.

Andreas never returned. It appeared that he had taken away all his
belongings. One day, when gradually mending, I put my hand under the
pillow with intent to find my watch, which was an heirloom, and wind it
up. I could find no watch. No more could I find the bag of ducats which
was alongside the watch before I lost my senses. Search was made
throughout the room without success, and, with whatever reluctance to
believe a thing so utterly unlikely, I could not refrain from the
conviction that Andreas must have carried off both money and watch.
The thought caused a relapse, but at length I attained convalescence,
and was able to drive out. But the doctor was firm that during the now
imminent winter I was not to return to t