o your party.'

"Almia felt she had reason to be proud. Here were three military men who
were in her power, and who could not get away from her. They were like
three mice tied together by the tails, each pulling in a different
direction and all remaining in the place where they had been dropped.

"The party now pushed forward toward the battle's edge. 'If glory is
your object,' said the Exceptional Pedestrian to Almia, 'it would have
been better if you had joined a regular corps of nurses. Then any
meritorious action on your part would have been noted and reported to
the authorities, and your good conduct would have been recognized. But
now you can expect nothing of the kind.' 'I did not come for the sake of
glory,' said Almia, flushing slightly; 'I came to succor the suffering,
and to do it without trammels.'

"'Trammels are often very desirable,' said he; 'they enable us to
proceed to a greater distance along the path of duty than we would be
apt to go if we could wander as we please from side to side.'

"Almia was about to reply somewhat sharply to this remark when,
suddenly, they heard a sound which made their nerves tingle. It was the
clang of sabres and the thunder of countless hoofs. They were in a mass
of tangled underbrush, and they peeped out into a wide roadway and
beheld the approach of a regiment of cavalry. On came this tidal wave of
noble horsemen; it reached the spot where Almia's burning eyes glowed
through the crevices of the foliage. Wildly galloping, cavalryman after
cavalryman passed her by. The eyes of the horses flashed fire, and their
nostrils were widely distended as if they smelt the battle from afar.
Their powerful necks were curved; their hoofs spurned the echoing earth;
and their riders, with flashing blades waved high above their heads,
shouted aloud their battle-cry, while their tall plumes floated madly
in the surging air. And, above the thunder of the hoofs, and the
clinking and the clanking of the bits and chains, and the creaking of
their leathern saddles, rose high the clarion voice of their leader,
urging them on to victory or to death.

"Almia had never been so excited in her life; she could scarcely
breathe. This was the grandeur of glorious war! Oh, how willingly would
she have mounted a fleet steed and have followed those valiant horsemen
as they thundered away into the distance!"

John Gayther had seen many a body of cavalry on the march, but he had
never beheld anything l