th me at first, major, and having cleared the ditch of the
Boulevard, rode away with me."

"Why it's Colonel Mahon's Arab, 'Aleppo,'" said another officer; "what
could have persuaded him to mount an orderly on a best worth ten
thousand francs?"

I thought I'd have fainted, as I heard these words; the whole
consequences of my act revealed themselves before me, and I saw arrest,
trial, sentence, imprisonment, and heaven knew what afterward, like a
panorama rolling out to my view.

"Tell the colonel, sir," said the major, "that I have taken the north
road, intending to cross over at Beaumont; that the artillery trains
have cut up the Metz road so deeply that cavalry can not travel; tell
him that I thank him much for his politeness in forwarding this dispatch
to me; and tell him, that I regret the rules of active service should
prevent my sending back an escort to place yourself under arrest, for
the manner in which you have ridden--you hear, sir?"

I touched my cap in salute.

"Are you certain, sir, that you have my answer correctly?"

"I am, sir."

"Repeat it, then."

I mentioned the reply, word for word, as he spoke it.

"No, sir," said he, as I concluded; "I said for unsoldierlike and cruel
treatment to your horse."

One of his officers whispered something in his ear, and he quietly
added--

"I find that I had not used these words, but I ought to have done so;
give the message, therefore, as you heard it at first."

"Mahon will shoot him, to a certainty," muttered one of the captains.

"I'd not blame him," joined another; "that horse saved his life at
Quiberon, when he fell in with a patrol; and look at him now!"

The major made a sign for me to retire, and I turned and set out toward
Nancy, with the feelings of a convict on the way to his fate.

If I did not feel that these brief records of an humble career were
"upon honor," and that the only useful lesson a life so unimportant can
teach is, the conflict between opposing influences, I might possibly be
disposed to blink the avowal, that, as I rode along toward Nancy, a very
great doubt occurred to me as to whether I ought not to desert! It is a
very ignoble expression; but it must out. There were not in the French
service any of those ignominious punishments which, once undergone, a
man is dishonored forever, and no more admissible to rank with men of
character than if convicted of actual crime; but there were marks of
degradation, almost as severe,