d to be peculiarly on
the alert. But, on a sudden, every night produced some casualty. They
either lost videttes, or their patrol was surprised, or their baggage
plundered--in short, they began to be the talk of the army. The regiment
had been always one of the most distinguished in the service, and all
those misfortunes were wholly unaccountable. At length a stronger picket
than usual was ordered for the night--not a man of them was to be found
in the morning. As no firing had been heard, the natural conjecture was,
that they must all have deserted. As this was a still more disgraceful
result than actual defeat, the colonel called his officers together, to
give what information they could. The camp, as usual, swarmed with
Bohemians, fortune-tellers, and gipsies, a race who carry intelligence
on both sides; and whose performances fully accounted for the knowledge
which the enemy evidently had of our outposts. The first order was, to
clear the quarters of the regiment of those encumbrances, and the next
to direct the videttes to fire without challenging. At midnight a shot
was heard; all turned out, and on reaching the spot where the alarm had
been given, the vidette was found lying on the ground and senseless,
though without a wound. On his recovery, he said that he had seen a
ghost; but that having fired at it, according to orders, it looked so
horribly grim at him, that he fell from his horse and saw no more. The
Austrians are brave, but they are remarkably afraid of supernatural
visitants, and a ghost would be a much more formidable thing to them
than a discharge of grape-shot.

"The captain in question was an Englishman, and as John Bull is
supposed, among foreigners, to carry an unusual portion of brains about
him, the colonel took him into his special council in the emergency.
Having settled their measures, the captain prepared to take charge of
the pickets for the night, making no secret of his dispositions. At
dark, the videttes and sentries were posted as usual, and the officer
took his post in the old field redoubt, which had been the headquarters
of the pickets for the last fortnight.

"All went on quietly until about midnight; the men off duty fast asleep
in their cloaks, and the captain reading an English novel. He, too, had
grown weary of the night, and was thinking of stretching himself on the
floor of his hut, when he saw, and not without some perturbation, a tall
spectral figure, in armour, enter the w