he died.

We gave the gentle Saxon the poor honor of a separate grave, and
as soon after the siege as I could get a letter out I wrote to his
father, sending the few little trinkets that had been trusted to my
keeping. In the answer and thanks of the lonely old man--for he was
now widowed and childless--there was something almost as sad as the
death I have been telling you of. He could not hear enough of his
son's last days, and our correspondence ceased only when my minutest
details had been given.

I have already told you of our last sortie, and really of our last
service as a corps. A few days after the loss of our coffee-pot the
armistice was declared. Those were sad times. I can't tell you of the
despair of that whole city. It makes me dizzy even to remember it.
When the people saw that their endurance, suffering, starvation for
those long months had been unavailing, there were no bounds to their
speech or acts. The two words, "Treason!" and "Bread!" were heard
everywhere. Men wept like children. Many actually lay down and died,
half starved, half heartbroken. These things will never be written
up--they never can be written up. It needed hope with the scant food
so many had lived on. The city at the mercy of the conquerors--But
there is no use in trying to recall those wild, miserable days. The
air was charged with the common despair. I saw the burning of the
Tuileries and all the horrors of the Commune, but nothing ever had
such an effect upon me as that.

I must, however, before I draw these reminiscences to a close, tell
you about Major O'Flynn, of Her Majesty's Indian army. It was he who
brought the pumpkin into camp at Chatillon. That he should have risked
his life most recklessly in doing it was nothing odd, as you will soon
learn. It was only a little droll that he should have taken just that
time and place to gratify his curiosity. He had heard Americans talk
a great deal about pumpkin-pies, and he wanted to know if they were
as good as their reputation; so he took the first chance and the first
pumpkin that came in his way. Major Thomas Vincent O'Flynn, of Her
Majesty's Indian army, was of course an Irishman. He was tall, tawny,
impassive as any Englishman; modest and mild-mannered in camp, and in
the field utterly unconscious of bullets or shell. He had married a
Hindoo lady, whom we called the Begum. She was just as excitable as
he was impassive. He owned a pair of splendid black horses, which he
ge