d undertake
it. Several of the bravest of the soldiers appeared indifferent to the
offer, when a young man stepped forward to undertake the task; he left the
detachment, and remained absent a long time; he was thought killed. While
the officers were deploring his fate, he returned, and gained their
admiration no less by the precision than the _sang froid_ of his recital.
The hundred louis were immediately presented to him. "_Vous vous moquez de
moi, mon general_," was his reply; "_va-t-on la pour de l'argent_."--[You
are jesting with me, general; one does not perform such actions for money.]

Colonel Hawker, who commanded the 14th Light Dragoons in most of the
serious engagements in the Peninsula, having formerly lost an arm in
action, was attended by an orderly man, who held a guiding rein to the
bridle of the colonel's charger; this attendant being slain by his side,
just as the enemy's cavalry had broken the line of the 14th, by a heavy
charge of superior numbers, great slaughter ensued on both sides, when a
French officer immediately opposed to Colonel Hawker, lifted up his sabre,
and was in the act of cutting him down, but observing the loss of his arm,
he instantly dropped the point on the colonel's shoulder, and, bending his
head, passed on. A truly noble adversary!

St. Louis.--Louis IX., after his captivity among the Saracens, was, with
his queen and children, nearly shipwrecked on his return to France, some of
the planks of the vessel having started. He was pressed to go on board
another ship, and so escape the danger, but he refused, saying, "Those that
are with me, most assuredly are as fond of their lives as I can be of mine.
If I quit the ship, they will likewise quit it; and the vessel not being
large enough to receive them, they will all perish. I had rather entrust my
life, and the lives of my wife and children, in the hands of God, than be
the occasion of making so many of my brave subjects suffer."

Magnanimous Rebel.--Sir Phelim O'Neil, one of the leaders in the Irish
rebellion of 1641, while in prison, previous to his trial, was frequently
solicited, by promises of a free pardon, and large rewards, to bear
testimony that the king (Charles the First) had been actively instrumental
in stirring up that rebellion. It was one of the arts of the factions of
that period to throw the odium of the massacre which followed the Irish
rebellion upon Charles; but whatever may have been the political sins of