was carried out, and was set on the very white donkey on which Loll Mahommed was conducted through the camp after he was bastinadoed. Bobbachy Bahawder rode behind me, restored to his rank and state; troops of cavalry hemmed us in on all sides; my ass was conducted by the common executioner: a crier went forward, shouting out, "Make way for the destroyer of the faithful--he goes to bear the punishment of his crimes." We came to the fatal plain: it was the very spot whence I had borne away the elephant, and in full sight of the fort. I looked towards it. Thank heaven! King George's banner waved on it still--a crowd were gathered on the walls--the men, the dastards who had deserted me--and women, too. Among the latter I thought I distinguished ONE who--O gods! the thought turned me sick--I trembled and looked pale for the first time.
"He trembles! he turns pale," shouted out Bobbachy Bahawder, ferociously exulting over his conquered enemy.
"Dog!" shouted I--(I was sitting with my head to the donkey's tail, and so looked the Bobbachy full in the face)--"not so pale as you looked when I felled you with this arm--not so pale as your women looked when I entered your harem!" Completely chop-fallen, the Indian ruffian was silent: at any rate, I had done for HIM.
We arrived at the place of execution. A stake, a couple of feet thick and eight high, was driven in the grass: round the stake, about seven feet from the ground, was an iron ring, to which were attached two fetters; in these my wrists were placed. Two or three executioners stood near, with strange-looking instruments: others were blowing at a fire, over which was a caldron, and in the embers were stuck other prongs and instruments of iron.
The crier came forward and read my sentence. It was the same in effect as that which had been hinted to me the day previous by the Grand Vizier. I confess I was too agitated to catch every word that was spoken.
Holkar himself, on a tall dromedary, was at a little distance. The Grand Vizier came up to me--it was his duty to stand by, and see the punishment performed. "It is yet time!" said he.
I nodded my head, but did not answer.
The Vizier cast up to heaven a look of inexpressible anguish, and with a voice choking with emotion, said, "EXECUTIONER--DO--YOUR--DUTY!"
The horrid man advanced--he whispered sulkily in the ears of the Grand Vizier, "Guggly ka ghee, hum khedgeree," said he, "the oil does not boil yet--wait one minute." The assistants blew, the fire blazed, the oil was heated. The Vizier drew a few feet aside: taking a large ladle full of the boiling liquid, he advanced--
*****
"Whish! bang, bang! pop!" the executioner was dead at my feet, shot through the head; the ladle of scalding oil had been dashed in the face of the unhappy Grand Vizier, who lay on the plain, howling. "Whish! bang! pop! Hurrah!--charge!--forwards!--cut them down!--no quarter!"
I saw--yes, no, yes, no, yes!--I saw regiment upon regiment of galloping British horsemen riding over the ranks of the flying natives. First of the host, I recognized, O heaven! my AHMEDNUGGAR IRREGULARS! On came the gallant line of black steeds and horsemen, swift, swift before them rode my officers in yellow--Glogger, Pappendick, and Stuffle; their sabres gleamed in the sun, their voices rung in the air. "D--- them!" they cried, "give it them, boys!" A strength supernatural thrilled through my veins at that delicious music: by one tremendous effort, I wrested the post from its foundation, five feet in the ground. I could not release my hands from the fetters, it is true; but, grasping the beam tightly, I sprung forward--with one blow I levelled the five executioners in the midst of the fire, their fall upsetting the scalding oil-can; with the next, I swept the bearers of Bobbachy's palanquin off their legs; with the third, I caught that chief himself in the small of the back, and sent him flying on to the sabres of my advancing soldiers!
The next minute, Glogger and Stuffle were in my arms, Pappendick leading on the Irregulars. Friend and foe in that wild chase had swept far away. We were alone; I was freed from my immense bar; and ten minutes afterwards, when Lord Lake trotted up with his staff, he found me sitting on it.
"Look at Gahagan," said his lordship. "Gentlemen, did I not tell you we should be sure to find him AT HIS POST?"
The gallant old nobleman rode on: and this was the famous BATTLE OF FURRUCKABAD, OR SURPRISE OF FUTTYGHUR, fought on the 17th of November, 1804.
*****
About a month afterwards, the following announcement appeared in the Boggleywollah Hurkaru and other Indian papers:--"Married, on the 25th of December, at Futtyghur, by the Rev. Dr. Snorter, Captain Goliah O'Grady Gahagan, Commanding Irregular Horse, Abmednuggar, to Belinda, second daughter of Major-General Bulcher, C.B. His Excellency the Commander-in-Chief gave away the bride; and after a splendid dejeune, the happy pair set off to pass the Mango season at Hurrygurrybang. Venus must recollect, however, that Mars must not ALWAYS be at her side. The Irregulars are nothing without their leader."
Such was the paragraph--such the event--the happiest in the existence of
G. O'G. G., M. H. E. I. C. S., C. I. H. A.
A LEGEND OF THE RHINE.
CHAPTER I.
SIR LUDWIG OF HOMBOURG.
It was in the good old days of chivalry, when every mountain that bathes its shadow in the Rhine had its castle: not inhabited, as now, by a few rats and owls, nor covered with moss and wallflowers, and funguses, and creeping ivy. No, no! where the ivy now clusters there grew strong portcullis and bars of steel; where the wallflower now quivers in the rampart there were silken banners embroidered with wonderful heraldry; men-at-arms marched where now you shall only see a bank of moss or a hideous black champignon; and in place of the rats and owlets, I warrant me there were ladies and knights to revel in the great halls, and to feast, and to dance, and to make love there. They are passed away:--those old knights and ladies: their golden hair first changed to silver, and then the silver dropped off and disappeared for ever; their elegant legs, so slim and active in the dance, became swollen and gouty, and then, from being swollen and gouty, dwindled down to bare bone-shanks; the roses left their cheeks, and then their cheeks disappeared, and left their skulls, and then their skulls powdered into dust, and all sign of them was gone. And as it was with them, so shall it be with us. Ho, seneschal! fill me a cup of liquor! put sugar in it, good fellow--yea, and a little hot water; a very little, for my soul is sad, as I think of those days and knights of old.
They, too, have revelled and feasted, and where are they?--gone?--nay, not altogether gone; for doth not the eye catch glimpses of them as they walk yonder in the gray limbo of romance, shining faintly in their coats of steel, wandering by the side of long-haired ladies, with long-tailed gowns that little pages carry? Yes! one sees them: the poet sees them still in the far-off Cloudland, and hears the ring of their clarions as they hasten to battle or tourney--and the dim echoes of their lutes chanting of love and fair ladies! Gracious privilege of poesy! It is as the Dervish's collyrium to the eyes, and causes them to see treasures that to the sight of donkeys are invisible. Blessed treasures of fancy! I would not change ye--no, not for many donkey-loads of gold. . . . Fill again, jolly seneschal, thou brave wag; chalk me up the produce on the hostel door--surely the spirits of old are mixed up in the wondrous liquor, and gentle visions of bygone princes and princesses look blandly down on us from the cloudy perfume of the pipe. Do you know in what year the fairies left the Rhine?--long before Murray's "Guide-Book" was wrote--long before squat steamboats, with snorting funnels, came paddling down the stream. Do you not know that once upon a time the appearance of eleven thousand British virgins was considered at Cologne as a wonder? Now there come twenty thousand such annually, accompanied by their ladies'-maids. But of them we will say no more--let us back to those who went before them.
Many, many hundred thousand years ago, and at the exact period when chivalry was in full bloom, there occurred a little history upon the banks of the Rhine, which has been already written in a book, and hence must be positively true. 'Tis a story of knights and ladies--of love and battle, and virtue rewarded; a story of princes and noble lords, moreover: the best of company. Gentles, an ye will, ye shall hear it. Fair dames and damsels, may your loves be as happy as those of the