,
and that well-nigh a third, if not more, of the army had been
killed or wounded.

"We made a mistake about these Russians," one of the troopers said.
"They are dirty, and they don't even look like soldiers, but I
never saw such obstinate beggars to fight. From the moment the
cavalry made their first charge they were beaten, and ought to have
given in; but they seemed to know nothing about it, and that second
line of theirs charged as if it was but the beginning of a battle.
I was never so surprised in my life as when they poured down on us,
horse and foot; but all that was nothing to the way they stood,
afterwards. If they had been bags of sawdust they could not have
been more indifferent to our fire.

"That was a bad business of Dohna's men. I thought, when we joined
them, they looked too spick and span to be any good; but that they
should run, almost as fast and far as the men of the Federal army
at Rossbach, is shameful. Neither in the last war nor in this has a
Prussian soldier so disgraced himself.

"I don't envy them. I don't suppose a man in the army will speak to
them, and we may be sure that it will be a long time, indeed,
before our Fritz gets over it. It will need some hard fighting, and
something desperate in the way of bravery, before he forgives them.

"How is your master, Karl?"

"He will do. He has got three wounds, and lost a lot of blood; but
in a fortnight he will be in the saddle again. Perhaps less, for he
is as hard as steel."

"He saved the king's life, Karl. I was twenty yards away, and was
wedged in so that there was no moving, except backwards; for
Dohna's men were half mad with fright, and the Russians were
cutting and slashing in the middle of us."

"I saw it," Karl said. "I was close to you at the time. I put spurs
to my horse and rode over three or four of our own men, and cut
down one who grasped my reins; but I got there too late. I had no
great fear of the result, though. Why, you know, he killed six
Pomeranians who were looting Count Eulenfurst's place, close to
Dresden; and he made short work of those three Russians. It was
done beautifully, too. They tried to get one on each side of him,
but he kept them on his right, and that made a safe thing of it.

"He is a quiet, good-tempered officer. There is as much fun about
him as a boy, but when his spirit is up, there are not many
swordsmen in the army that could match him. Why, when he first
joined, nearly three years ago, h