第11章 CHAPTER III(2)

I am six feet four--my figure is as well known in the Spanish army as that of the Count de Luchana, or my fierce little friend Cabrera himself. "GAHAGAN!" shouted out half-a-dozen scoundrelly voices, and fifty more shots came rattling after me. I was running--running as the brave stag before the hounds--running as I have done a great number of times before in my life, when there was no help for it but a race.

After I had run about five hundred yards, I saw that I had gained nearly three upon our column in front, and that likewise the Christino horsemen were left behind some hundred yards more; with the exception of three, who were fearfully near me. The first was an officer without a lance; he had fired both his pistols at me, and was twenty yards in advance of his comrades; there was a similar distance between the two lancers who rode behind him. I determined then to wait for No. 1, and as he came up delivered cut 3 at his horse's near leg--off it flew, and down, as I expected, went horse and man. I had hardly time to pass my sword through my prostrate enemy, when No. 2 was upon me. If I could but get that fellow's horse, thought I, I am safe; and I executed at once the plan which I hoped was to effect my rescue.

I had, as I said, left the podesta with Sheeny's portmanteau, and, unwilling to part with some of the articles it contained--some shirts, a bottle of whisky, a few cakes of Windsor soap, &c. &c.,--I had carried it thus far on my shoulders, but now was compelled to sacrifice it malgre moi. As the lancer came up, I dropped my sword from my right hand, and hurled the portmanteau at his head, with aim so true, that he fell back on his saddle like a sack, and thus when the horse galloped up to me, I had no difficulty in dismounting the rider: the whisky-bottle struck him over his right eye, and he was completely stunned. To dash him from the saddle and spring myself into it, was the work of a moment; indeed, the two combats had taken place in about a fifth part of the time which it has taken the reader to peruse the description. But in the rapidity of the last encounter, and the mounting of my enemy's horse, I had committed a very absurd oversight--I was scampering away WITHOUT MY SWORD! What was I to do?--to scamper on, to be sure, and trust to the legs of my horse for safety!

The lancer behind me gained on me every moment, and I could hear his horrid laugh as he neared me. I leaned forward jockey-fashion in my saddle, and kicked, and urged, and flogged with my hand, but all in vain. Closer--closer--the point of his lance was within two feet of my back. Ah! ah! he delivered the point, and fancy my agony when I felt it enter--through exactly fifty-nine pages of the New Monthly Magazine. Had it not been for that Magazine, I should have been impaled without a shadow of a doubt. Was I wrong in feeling gratitude? Had I not cause to continue my contributions to that periodical?

When I got safe into Morella, along with the tail of the sallying party, I was for the first time made acquainted with the ridiculous result of the lancer's thrust (as he delivered his lance, I must tell you that a ball came whizz over my head from our fellows, and entering at his nose, put a stop to his lancing for the future). I hastened to Cabrera's quarter, and related to him some of my adventures during the day.

"But, General," said he, "you are standing. I beg you chiudete l'uscio (take a chair)."

I did so, and then for the first time was aware that there was some foreign substance in the tail of my coat, which prevented my sitting at ease. I drew out the Magazine which I had seized, and there, to my wonder, discovered the Christino lance twisted up like a fish-hook or a pastoral crook.

"Ha! ha! ha!" said Cabrera (who is a notorious wag).

"Valdepenas madrilenos," growled out Tristany.

"By my cachuca di caballero (upon my honour as a gentleman)," shrieked out Ros d'Eroles, convulsed with laughter, "I will send it to the Bishop of Leon for a crozier."

"Gahagan has CONSECRATED it," giggled out Ramon Cabrera; and so they went on with their muchacas for an hour or more. But, when they heard that the means of my salvation from the lance of the scoundrelly Christino had been the Magazine containing my own history, their laugh was changed into wonder. I read them (speaking Spanish more fluently than English) every word of my story. "But how is this?" said Cabrera. "You surely have other adventures to relate?"

"Excellent sir," said I, "I have;" and that very evening, as we sat over our cups of tertullia (sangaree), I continued my narrative in nearly the following words:-"I left off in the very middle of the battle of Delhi, which ended, as everybody knows, in the complete triumph of the British arms.

But who gained the battle? Lord Lake is called Viscount Lake of Delhi and Laswaree, while Major Gaha--nonsense, never mind HIM, never mind the charge he executed when, sabre in hand, he leaped the six-foot wall in the mouth of the roaring cannon, over the heads of the gleaming pikes; when, with one hand seizing the sacred peishcush, or fish--which was the banner always borne before Scindiah,--he, with his good sword, cut off the trunk of the famous white elephant, which, shrieking with agony, plunged madly into the Mahratta ranks, followed by his giant brethren, tossing, like chaff before the wind, the affrighted kitmatgars. He, meanwhile, now plunging into the midst of a battalion of consomahs, now cleaving to the chine a screaming and ferocious bobbachee, {4} rushed on, like the simoom across the red Zaharan plain, killing, with his own hand, a hundred and forty-thr--but never mind--'ALONE HE DID IT;'sufficient be it for him，owever, that the victory was won: he cares not for the empty honours which were awarded to more fortunate men!

{4} The double-jointed camel of Bactria, which the classic reader may recollect is mentioned by Suidas (in his Commentary on the Flight of Darius), is so called by the Mahrattas.