“’Jeswunt row holkar.

“’Camp before Futtyghur, Sept. 1, 1804.

“‘R.  S. V. P.’

“The officer who had brought this precious epistle (it is astonishing how Holkar had aped the forms of English correspondence), an enormous Pitan soldier, with a shirt of mail, and a steel cap and cape, round which his turban wound, was leaning against the gate on his matchlock, and whistling a national melody.  I read the letter, and saw at once there was no time to be lost.  That man, thought I, must never go back to Holkar.  Were he to attack us now before we were prepared, the fort would be his in half an hour.

“Tying my white pocket-handkerchief to a stick, I flung open the gate and advanced to the officer; he was standing, I said, on the little bridge across the moat.  I made him a low salaam, after the fashion of the country, and, as he bent forward to return the compliment, I am sorry to say, I plunged forward, gave him a violent blow on the head, which deprived him of all sensation, and then dragged him within the wall, raising the drawbridge after me.

“I bore the body into my own apartment:  there, swift as thought, I stripped him of his turban, cammerbund, peijammahs, and papooshes, and, putting them on myself, determined to go forth and reconnoitre the enemy.”

*****

Here I was obliged to stop, for Cabrera, Ros d’Eroles, and the rest of the staff, were sound asleep!  What I did in my reconnaisance, and how I defended the fort of Futtyghur, I shall have the honor of telling on another occasion.

CHAPTER IV.

The Indian camp—­the sortie from the fort.

Head-quarters, Morella, Oct. 3, 1838.

It is a balmy night.  I hear the merry jingle of the tambourine, and the cheery voices of the girls and peasants, as they dance beneath my casement, under the shadow of the clustering vines.  The laugh and song pass gayly round, and even at this distance I can distinguish the elegant form of Ramon Cabrera, as he whispers gay nothings in the ears of the Andalusian girls, or joins in the thrilling chorus of Riego’s hymn, which is ever and anon vociferated by the enthusiastic soldiery of Carlos Quinto.  I am alone, in the most inaccessible and most bomb-proof tower of our little fortalice; the large casements are open—­the wind, as it enters, whispers in my ear its odorous recollections of the orange grove and the myrtle bower.  My torch (a branch of the fragrant cedar-tree) flares and flickers in the midnight breeze, and disperses its scent and burning splinters on my scroll and the desk where I write—­meet implements for a soldier’s authorship!—­it is cartridge paper over which my pen runs so glibly, and a yawning barrel of gunpowder forms my rough writing-table.  Around me, below me, above me, all—­all is peace!  I think, as I sit here so lonely, on my country, England! and muse over the sweet and bitter recollections of my early days!  Let me resume my narrative, at the point where (interrupted by the authoritative summons of war) I paused on the last occasion.