Various
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 69, No. 423, January 1851
Before proceeding to the longest and most remarkable sketch in the volume, we will extract the beginning and end of a humorous paper, written in true soldier's style, entitled From the Memoirs of a Quartermaster.
"I never saw such a man as my lieutenant. It is not because he was my lieutenant that I say so, but a merrier fellow was not to be found in the army. Were I a poet or a scholar, I would make a fine romance out of his adventures; but as I unfortunately lack the learning, I must be content to set down a few odd incidents of our joyous camp-life, just as they occur to my memory. It gives me pleasure to recall these anecdotes of my late master, who was lieutenant in the volunteers. Those who knew him will not have forgotten how gay a wooer he was with women, and how brave a soldier in war.
"They transferred us to a battalion that lay in Siebenburgen, and which was not yet completely equipped. Our principal wants were muskets and cartouch-boxes. Nobody had a greatcoat; and, in another respect, the battalion was quite uniform, for every one went barefoot. My lieutenant often complained to the captain, who had been a Bohemian forester, and afterwards a coffee-roaster in Pesth, but who, when his daughter's husband was promoted to be major of our battalion, was by him appointed captain – to him, I say, the lieutenant repeatedly complained that the poor soldiers were frozen, and should at least be supplied with greatcoats. But all in vain; the superior officers gambled the money sent them by Government for the equipment of the troops; and all my lieutenant could obtain from the ex-coffee-roaster was a bon-mot which Napoleon, he said, had addressed to his soldiers when they complained in Egypt of bad clothing: 'Avec du pain et du fer on peut aller à Chine.'
"The lieutenant made me write these words on one hundred and fifty small slips of paper, pinned these upon his men's shoulders, and said – 'There, my lads, are your greatcoats.' Boots were all that was now wanting. One fine morning we received a hundred and fifty bran-new – blacking-boxes!
"'Engem ucse,' said the lieutenant: ''tis good; instead of boots they send us blacking.' And next day, when the little gray general passed a review, our company marched past with their bare feet blacked and polished, and with spurs drawn in chalk upon their heels. The general laughed at first, and then reprimanded the major. The major laughed too, and scolded the captain. Finally, the captain abused my lieutenant, who abused him in return; but, as the one understood no Hungarian, and the other no German, the dispute led to nothing.
"At last we got ourselves shod, by gloriously ransacking a Wallachian village, and thrusting our feet into the red boots the women had left behind them. Thenceforward our company was known everywhere as 'the regiment of Red Boots.'
"In our first engagement we had not much to do. The enemy fired at us from a distance, whilst we stood still and looked at them. Some of the recruits bobbed their heads aside when they saw the shot coming through the air. 'Don't shake your head, my man,' the lieutenant would say; 'you might chance to knock it against a cannon-ball.' In the second action we took a gun from the enemy. It came up very near us and unlimbered; but, before it had time to fire a shot, my lieutenant made the soldiers believe it was one of our own guns; that the enemy were about to capture it; and could we suffer this? We could not suffer it, and rushed on: a few shots met us; but before we well knew what we did, the gun was in our power. The whole was over in less time than I take to tell it.
"From that day forward nobody made fun of the Red Boots, and soon we were supplied with muskets. Many of these were hardly fit to fire with; but bayonet and butt were always there, wherewith to thrust and strike.
"It was in the dog-days. For three months we had received no pay. At last, to silence my lieutenant's terrible expostulations, they sent us money – fifteen notes of a hundred florins each.
"The salaries of Government officials were paid in fifteen-kreuzer pieces; the money we soldiers wanted, for our daily bread, was sent in hundred-florin notes. Of course, nothing could be easier, in the Wallach hamlets in which we were cantoned, than to get small change for fifteen hundred-florin notes.
"Whilst my lieutenant was grumbling over this, and puzzling his head how to divide these few large notes into many small ones, a courier arrived and brought him a letter.
"The lieutenant read the letter, and laughed out loud. Then he ordered a parade. He was the only officer present. Two captains and a major were constantly rambling about, and seldom saw their battalion, but left everything to my lieutenant. So he ordered the drums to beat for muster; and when the men were assembled, he informed them that their pay had come just in the nick of time. Then he produced the fifteen hundred florins24 and a pair of scissors, made the soldiers file past, and cut off a slip of the notes for each one of them. It was the only way to divide them.
"This done, he came singing and whistling into his quarters, laughed and cut jokes, played a thousand pranks, and at last called to me, and asked if I had a dry cloth at hand, to wipe up something.
"I answered that I had.
"'Go and fetch it, then.' And he continued to laugh and jest, and seemed in most wonderful good humour. 'Make haste,' he shouted after me, as I hurried to fetch the cloth. I felt quite sure he was going to play me some famous trick, he looked so sly and comical when he gave me the order.
"Whilst I sought for a towel, I heard the report of a firearm in the next room. Towel in hand, I threw open the door. The room was full of smoke.
"'What am I to wipe up?' I asked.
"'This blood!' said the lieutenant, who lay upon the ground. The warm heart's-blood flowed from a wound in his breast; in his hand he held a pistol and the letter he had that morning received.
"The letter announced the catastrophe of Vilagos. In two minutes he was dead.
"Thus did my lieutenant make a fool of me, at last.
"Such a merry fellow was my lieutenant."
The various memoirs of the Hungarian war record more than one instance of self-destruction and insanity, amongst the enthusiastic defenders of the Magyar cause, consequent upon Görgey's shameful surrender, and the final downfall of their cherished hopes. As far as the suicide goes, therefore, there is nothing improbable in the conduct of the eccentric lieutenant. Passing over several shorter papers, for the most part clever and spirited, we come to the striking tale, or rather series of scenes, entitled George of St Thomas, which, besides being the most carefully finished of these sketches, includes several of the most terrible and romantic historical incidents of that war. Its construction is favourable to extract, and we propose to translate such portions of it as our limits will allow, and therewith close our notice of the Schlachtfelderblüthen aus Ungarn. The first chapter is headed —
THE FIEND'S FESTIVAL
It was dark night in the town of St Thomas. Not a star was visible. Well was it that the heavens saw not what then occurred upon earth.
Men who had grown gray together in love and friendship, dwelling in the same street, under the very same roof, who were bound to each other by ties of blood and kindred, of gratitude and duty, who were wont to share each other's joys and griefs, began, upon a sudden, as if frantic with infernal inspirations, to plot each other's extermination, and to fill their souls with bloody hatred against those who had never wronged them.
It was St Eustace' day. The Raitzen25 assembled in their church, to worship God, as they said. But no words of God were there, nor solemn organ-notes; wild voices announced approaching horrors, and the sainted roof resounded with strains ominous of strife.
The town's-people were tranquil. Those amongst them who noticed that their neighbours' windows were lighted up, and who saw gloomy faces hurrying to the church, said to themselves, "To-day the Raitzen hold high festival;" and thought no more of it, but went their ways to bed. Towards midnight the alarm-bell sounded, the doors of the temple opened, and the nocturnal revel began.
With wild howl the excited mob burst into the houses of their sleeping neighbours. It was as though they had some ancient and inveterate grudge to avenge, so fierce and bitter was the fury with which they murdered all whose windows showed no lights – the token the Raitzen had adopted, lest by error they should assail each other's dwellings.
In two hours the Magyar population of the town was exterminated, with the exception of a scanty few who escaped in carts and carriages. These, however, were pursued; and when the uproar in the town, the sounds of strife and lamentation, and the clang of bells, were hushed, cries of agony and despair were still heard issuing at intervals from the adjacent country, as vehicles, stuck fast in the treacherous swamps, were overtaken, and the luckless fugitives ruthlessly butchered. At last these heart-rending sounds also ceased. Voices of complaint were no longer audible, but in their stead, in more than one quarter of the illuminated town, were heard music, and dancing, and merriment.
It was long past midnight when a cart drove through the streets of St Thomas. In it sat a man wrapped in his cloak, marvelling greatly at the lights in the houses, and the sounds of festivity and joy. At his own house-door he stopped his horse. To his great surprise, his dwelling also was lighted up, and within were sounds of music, a hum of voices, and noise of dancing feet. Astounded and anxious, he stepped silently to a window, and through it he beheld a crowd of well-known faces. The company, flushed with wine and excitement, sang and shouted, and drank out of his glasses, and danced madly round the room. They were all old acquaintances, and inhabitants of the town.
Ignorant of the events of the night, the man thought he was dreaming.
Presently his attention was attracted by the licentious garb and demeanour of a woman, who circulated amongst the guests with loud laugh and libertine gestures, sharing in and stimulating the orgies. At first, he could not discern who this woman was. Then he recognised her. It was his own wife.
"Hold!" he shouted, and strode into the room where these saturnalia were in progress. He knew not what to do or say; it were hard to find a word which should express the rage that possessed him.
"Hold!" he thundered out, every fibre quivering with fury, "what do ye here?"
The guests stood aghast at that apparition of wrath. The boldest started at sight of the man, as he stood amongst them, terrible and deadly pale. For a while none dared approach him. He went up to his wife, a dark-haired, black-eyed, red-cheeked wanton, who stood as if turned to stone. He fixed his eyes upon hers with a deadly gaze.
"On your knees!"
The woman stirred not.
"On your knees, wretch!" vociferated the husband, and struck her in the face, so that she fell to the ground.
"Hold, dog!" was shouted on all sides. The Raitzen rushed forward, and the man was seized by twenty hands. He struggled against them, grasped the throat of one, and relaxed not his clutch, even when thrown down and trampled under foot, until he had choked his adversary to death. They bound his hands and thrust him into a corner. The Raitzen formed a circle about him.
"What would ye of me?" he asked, the blood flowing from his mouth.
"What would we? Look around you. See you not that all here are Raitzen?" replied a tall dark-browed Serb, scowling scornfully and cruelly at the sufferer.
"And I a Magyar. What then?"
"Ask thy neighbours. Hast thou not heard that to-day is our festival? The festival of the extermination of the Magyars. You are one: the last in the town. All the others are dead. As the last, you shall choose the manner of your death."
"So you are the executioner, Basil?"
"I? I am the chosen of my people."
With indescribable loathing, the Magyar spat in his face.
"Scoundrel!" yelled the insulted man, "for this you shall weep tears of blood."
"Weep! I? – who ever saw me weep? You may slay me, you may torture me, or tear me limb from limb. There are enough of you to do it. But weep you shall not see me, though you burst for impotent rage."
"Weep thou shalt, and 'tis I will make thee. Know that it is I who seduced your wife, and for whom she betrayed you."
"That is thy shame, not mine."
"All thy kinsmen are slain."
"Better they should lie dead in the street than breathe the same air with thee."
"Thy property is annihilated."
"May God destroy those who did it."
"Truly, thou art a cool fellow. But – you had a daughter, – a fair and innocent child."
George looked at his tormentor, and shuddered.
"Lina, I think, was her name," continued the Serb, drawling out his words with a refinement of cruelty.
"What – what mean you?" asked the trembling father.
"A comely maiden, by my word. Fair to look upon, is she not?"
"The devil seize thee! What next?"
"So young and delicate, and yet – six husbands. Hard to choose. Your wife could not decide to which she should belong. I stepped in, and settled the matter. I married her – to all six – " He burst into fiendish laughter.
Mute and giddy with horror, the father raised himself from the ground.
"I am sorry," continued the Serb, "that you were not here for the wedding."
"May God's justice fall upon you!" shrieked the wretched father, stifling his tears. But the parent's heart overpowered the pride of the man. He fell with his face upon the ground, and wept – tears of blood.
"Lift him up," said Basil, "that we may see him weep for the first time in his life. Weep a little, George; and you, sot, tune up your pipes, that he may have accompaniment to his tears."
And thereupon the drunken band began to dance round their victim with shouts of laughter and scoffing gestures, striking and kicking him as they passed. Now, however, he wept no longer. He closed his eyes and kept silence, enduring their ill-treatment without sign or sound of complaint.
"Away with him!" cried Basil. "Throw him into the garret, and put a sentry over him. To-day we have celebrated his daughter's wedding; to-morrow we will drink at his funeral. Good-night, friend George."
He was dragged up to the garret, and locked in. Where they threw him, there he lay, motionless upon the floor, as though all sensation had departed from both body and soul, awaiting the hour of death, and rejoicing that it was near at hand. For a while the dancing and singing continued; then the Serbs departed to sleep, and all was still. His eyes were unvisited by slumber. Yet a little while, he thought to himself, and eternal repose will be mine.
He lay with his senses thus benumbed, thinking neither of the past nor the future, when he heard a rustle at the garret window. Through the darkness he saw a white figure pass through the small opening, and grope its way towards him. Was it a dream? or a reality? The figure's steps were noiseless. But presently it spoke – in a scarcely audible whisper.
"Father! father!" it said.
"Lina!"
He looked up, seeking to discern the features of his visitor. She hurried to him, kissed him, and cut the ropes that bound his hands.
"My child!" murmured George, and clasped his daughter's tottering knees. "My dear, my only child!"
"Let us fly!" said the maiden, in faint and suffering tones. "The ladder is at the window. Quick, father – quick!"
George clasped his panting child in his arms, and bore her through the opening in the garret roof, and down the ladder, resting her head upon his shoulder and covering her cold cheek with his kisses. Near the ladder-foot, he stumbled over something. "What is that? A spade. We will take it with us."
"For a weapon!" said the father.
"To dig a grave!" said the daughter.
On the other side of the house was heard a heavy monotonous step. It was a Serb on sentry.
"Stay here! Keep close to the wall," said George to his daughter. He grasped the spade, and crept noiselessly to the corner of the house. The steps came nearer and nearer. George raised the spade. The Serb turned the corner, and – lay the next moment upon the ground, with his skull split. He had not time for a single cry.
George took the dead man's clothes and weapons, took his daughter in his arms, and left the town. The morning star glittered in the brightening sky. Towards daybreak, and without having exchanged a word, father and daughter reached the nearest village. George had many acquaintances there, and with one of them, he thought, he could leave his daughter. He found but a poor reception. Nowhere was he suffered to cross the threshold. None offered him so much as a crust of bread. All closed their doors, and implored him to depart, lest he should bring destruction on their heads. The villagers were neither hard-hearted nor cowardly; but they feared that if the Serbs of St Thomas heard of their sheltering a fugitive, they also would be murdered or plundered. With anguish in his soul, the wretched man again took his child in his arms, and resumed his journey.
For six days he walked on, over stubble and fallow, through storm and cold by night and parching heat by day – his child, his beloved child, on his arm. He asked not what ailed her; and she uttered no complaint.
On the sixth day the maiden died, of hunger, misery, and grief.
The father felt his burthen heavier; the arms that clasped his neck slackened their hold, and the pale cheek that nestled on his shoulder was chill and cold!
But the spires of Szegedin now glittered in the distance. George hurried on, and at last, exhausted by his speed, he reached at noonday the large and populous city. In front of it, on the vast plain, a great multitude was assembled: more than twenty thousand souls were gathered together, listening to the words of a popular orator, exalted upon a scaffolding in their midst. George made his way into the throng; the speaker was relating the incredible atrocities of the Raitzen. Several of his hearers noticed the weary, wild-looking, travel-stained man, carrying in his arms a pale girl with closed eyes, who stood amongst them like a fugitive from a mad-house.
"Whence come you?" they asked him.
"From St Thomas."
"Ha! Up! up with him on the scaffold!" cried those who heard his reply.
"A man is here from St Thomas. Up with him, and let him speak to the people!"
The crowd opened a passage, and George was hurried to the scaffold. When, from this elevation, his emaciated and ghastly countenance, furrowed by suffering and despair, his failing limbs, and the faded and ashy pale features of the child upon his shoulder, became visible to the assembled multitude, a deep shuddering murmur ran through its masses, like that the Platten Lake gives forth when tempest nears its shores. At sight and sound of the heaving throng, a hectic flush flamed upon George's cheek, an unwonted fire burned in his bosom; he felt the spirit of revenge descend upon his head like a forked and fiery tongue.
"Magyars!" he exclaimed in loud and manly tones, "I come from St Thomas, the sole survivor of all who there prayed to God in the Magyar tongue. My goods are plundered, my kinsmen slain. Have any of you friends there? – prepare your mourning, for of a surety they are dead. Of all I possessed I have saved but one treasure – my unhappy child. Approach! ye that are fathers, think of your virgin daughters, and behold what they have made of mine!"
As he spoke, he lifted his child from his shoulder; and then only did he perceive that she was dead. Until that moment, he had thought she was only faint and silent, as she had constantly been for six days past.
"Dead!" shrieked the despairing man, and clasped the corpse to his heart. "She is dead!" he repeated. The words died away upon his lips, and he fell, like one thunderstruck, headlong to the ground.
This tragical incident raised to a climax the excitement of the multitude.
"Revenge! – a bloody revenge!" thundered a voice; and the tumult that now arose was like the howling of the storm.
"To arms! To arms! all who are men!" was shouted on every side, and the people thronged through the streets and lanes of the city. "To arms! – to arms!" was re-echoed from house to house, and in an hour's time ten thousand furious men stood armed and equipped, and ready to set out for St Thomas.
Then there got abroad a sullen apprehension, speedily succeeded by a fierce resolve. Some one chanced to say: —
"But what if, when we march away, the Raitzen rise up and murder our children?"
The words passed from mouth to mouth.
"They shall die!" exclaimed many voices. "Let them perish, as our brothers perished at St Thomas! They must die!"
And with terrible ferocity the people turned against their own city, and like a mountain torrent, overpowering all restraint, poured into their neighbours' dwellings, and slew the Raitzen to the very last man.
This occurred on the sixth day after the extermination of the Magyars at St Thomas.
THE ROBBER-CAPTAIN
George took his dead child in his arms, carried her into the forest, dug a grave at the foot of a poplar tree, and laid her in it. He lacked the courage to throw clods upon her pale and beautiful countenance, but he plucked leaves and twigs from the bushes, laid them thickly over her, and then covered all with the black earth. When the grave was filled in, and whilst he was smoothing the green moss over the mound, anguish tore his heart; but, instead of soothing tears, the fire of hell gleamed in his eyes.
Then he took out his knife, to cut his child's name on the bark of the tree which was to be her living monument. But when the letters were complete, there stood, graven by his own hand, the name of Basil. For he thought no longer of his daughter, but of her murderer. And more terribly significant than a thousand curses and vows of vengeance, was that name, graven in that hour and that place.
George rose from the ground, and wandered forth into the forest. He had walked some distance, when a longing desire came over him once more to gaze upon his daughter's grave. He turned to seek it, but the trees were all alike: in vain he sought the one beneath which his child lay buried, and at last night overtook him in the very heart of the forest. Still he walked on, whither and wherefore he knew not. The wood grew thicker, and the night darker; the birds, startled at his footsteps, flew screaming from their perch. At last he stumbled over a tree-root, and fell. Why should he get up again? As well there as anywhere. He let his weary head sink upon the ground, whispered a "good night" to his child, and fell asleep, and dreamed of burning towns and scenes of slaughter.
Towards midnight the neighing of a horse roused him from his restless slumbers. Near at hand he saw a saddle-horse, snorting and pawing the ground. Behind some bushes he heard a woman's plaintive tone, and the harsher voice of a man, mingled at intervals with the prattle of a child.
The man was a short spare figure, with flashing black eyes, long mustaches hanging down over his mouth, and black hair streaming on his shoulders. Energy was the characteristic of his features, and the sinews of his frame were like cords of steel.
In his arms he held a child, three or four years old. The child called him father, and clasped him affectionately with its little hands. A woman was also there, sobbing passionately, and wiping the tears from her eyes.
"Canst thou pray, my son?" said the man, seating the child upon his knee.
"Surely he can," the woman answered; "morning and evening he repeats his prayer."
"Grow up a good man, my son – not such a one as thy father. In another year put him to school, that he may learn something good."
"That will I, though it were to cost me my last florin!"
"And take him far hence! When he is older, never tell him what his father was. Conceal my name from him; never let him know that he is the son of Rosa Sandor the robber."26
"Ask thy father, child, when he will again visit us."
"I know not, my son. For me the morning never dawns of which I can say, this day is mine. Here to-day, to-morrow fifty miles off; after to-morrow, perhaps under the turf."
"Talk not thus! See, tears are in the child's eyes."
"So is it, my son, and not otherwise. The robber has none to whom to pray, early and late, for protection to his life."
"But you are no murderer, Sandor! You have no man's blood upon your hands!"
"Seek not to palliate my offence, dear wench! Sooner or later, the gallows and the ravens will claim me."
Again the woman began to sob; the child cried when it saw its mother weep; with deep feeling the robber caressed and comforted them.
"Go home, dear ones!" he said, "and be not uneasy. Tell no one that you have seen me. And His blessing be upon you, whose blessing I dare not ask!"
The woman and child departed. The robber sprang into the saddle, and, standing up in the stirrups, listened, as long as they were audible, to the infantine tones of his child. Suddenly an icy-cold hand was laid upon his. Startled, but without uttering a sound, he turned his head. A man stood beside his horse. It was the fugitive from St Thomas.
"Fear nothing from me, Rosa! Handle not your pistols. Mine shall not be the first blood you shed. Not to that end has your life been preserved through sixteen years of peril. Your destiny is not that of a common malefactor."
"You know me, then?"
"By report, as an outlaw, with a price upon your head. I know, too that you have a beloved wife and a darling child, to see whom once in every year you risk your life – here, where all know you, and any might betray you."
"Not a word of that! You are ragged and needy. Doubtless you would enlist in my band. Here, take this" – he offered him a pistol; "rather than do that, send a bullet through your head."
The fugitive from St Thomas looked earnestly in Sandor's face. Then he said quietly, almost carelessly, "Do my bidding, and the name of the Robber shall no longer be coupled with that of Rosa Sandor."
"Are you mad? Have I not done my utmost? and in every quarter? Let them pardon my past offences, and they would hear of no new ones. The traveller need no longer fear me. Have I not offered to compensate to the utmost of my power all those I have injured, and to build, out of my ill-gotten gains, a place of worship for that God whose commandments I have wilfully broken? All I ask is to be suffered to live amongst my fellowmen, and to earn my daily bread by the labour of my hands. They would never listen to my offers. There is no atonement I am not willing to make to the offended laws of God and my country. But they ever rejected and drove me forth. And thou – what wouldst thou with me? – betray me? Fly, wretch! Hitherto I have shed no blood."
"Henceforward thou shalt shed it, and thereby redeem thy crimes. Your country accepts what the law refused. Your country has foes; go, wash with their blood the stain from your name!"
"Tempt me not!" said the robber mournfully. "Ah, were it indeed granted me to die a happy and honourable death upon the battle-field! – "
"And if fame, instead of death, awaited you there? And if, on your return thence, the very men who now chase you from forest to forest, came forth to meet you with laurel crowns and joyous acclamations; and if, instead of "robber," hero and patriot were coupled with your name? – "
"Stop! befool me not! Oh, I could do much! A strong squadron could I bring into the field, composed of men who a hundred times have looked death fearlessly in the face; men inured to heat and cold, and to back a horse for three days and nights without dismounting."
"I will go and intercede for you."
"But what am I to thee? Who art thou? And why wouldst thou serve me?"
"Oh, I have my motives. I am one whom the Raitzen have driven from house and home, whose wife they have seduced, whose kindred they have slain. By flight alone did I escape with my life; and here, in this very forest, have I buried my only child, polluted and murdered. All these things have the Raitzen done to me. Now, tell me, if you war against them, you will give no quarter?"
"None."
"Then trust me that I will never rest until I bring your pardon, on the condition that you take the field against the Raitzen with your whole band. And may your happiness on earth be measured by the destruction you bring upon their accursed race."
"Clear me the path to the battle-field, and you shall have a mountain of your enemies' skulls."
"I will do so. By all that is sacred, I swear. In a fortnight I bring your pardon. Where shall we meet?"
"We? nowhere. I trust no man. If you be sincere, come to Félegyház. There, in the tavern, sits each morning a wrinkled old beggar, his grey hair tied up in two knots. He has but one hand – thereby will you know him. Show him this pistol, and he will conduct you to me. Seek not to compel from him the secret of my hiding-place, for no tortures could wring it from his lips. Be not angry. I must be cautious. For sixteen years have I been hunted like a beast of prey. And now away, and keep to your right to find the path. An opposite road is mine."
He set spurs to his horse, and galloped off through the forest.
The fortnight had not expired when George entered the tavern at Félegyház.
In a dark corner, over a measure of wine, sat the grey-haired, one-handed beggar.
George showed the pistol. The beggar rose from his seat, drank off his wine, paid the tavern-keeper, and left the house. Not a syllable escaped him.
The two men stopped before a wretched hut, at the extremity of the village. The beggar went in, and brought out two powerful black saddle-horses. He signed to George to mount one, whilst he himself sprang upon the other, as actively as though he were a young man and had both hands.
Once fairly off, the old beggar became talkative. These horses, he said, were hacks of Rosa Sandor's, good beasts enough; but the Captain's favourite steed was far finer and better, and would let none but its master mount it, and would gallop for whole days together without rest, or food, or drink. It swam the Theiss thrice running, and watched its master's sleep like the most faithful dog, neighing when danger approached.