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 Chapter 5

Multiple Choice (21) WARNING: CORRECT ANSWERS ARE IN THE SAME POSITION AND TAGGED WITH **.
YOU SHOULD RANDOMIZE THE LOCATION OF THE CORRECT ANSWERS IN YOUR EXAM.

1. When reading data from a file, the open function returns a(n) __________.
a. file object **
b. file name
c. file handle
d. file tuple

2. What function do you use to terminate a connection to a file?

a. close **
b. terminate
c. stop
d. disconnect

3. After all the lines of a file have been read, the readline method returns __________.
a. the empty string **
b. an empty tuple
c. the value None
d. a Throwback error

4. Python uses a(n) __________ as a temporary holding place for data to be written to disk.
a. buffer **
b. temp space
c. special memory location
d. list

5. When are the contents of the buffer written to disk?

a. When the buffer is full.
b. When the file is closed.
c. Both a & b. **
d. None of the above.

6. Which standard library module do you need to import in order to use the remove and rename
functions for files?
a. os **
b. file
c. path

© 2016 Pearson Education, Inc., Hoboken, NJ. All rights reserved.

 d. pickle

7. A(n) __________ is an unordered collection of items with no duplicates.

a. set **
b. file
c. dictionary
d. tuple

8. Elements of a set are delimited with __________.

a. { } **
b. [ ]
c. ( )
d. < >

9. The statement set1.union(set2) is:

a. the set containing the elements that are in either set1 and set2 without duplicates **
b. the set containing the elements that are in both set1 and set2
c. the set containing the elements that are in set1 with the elements of set2 removed
d. the set containing the elements that are in set2 with the elements of in set1 removed

10. The statement set1.intersection(set2) is:

a. the set containing the elements that are in both set1 and set2 **
b. the set containing the elements that are in either set1 and set2 without duplicates
c. the set containing the elements that are in set1 with the elements of set2 removed
d. the set containing the elements that are in set2 with the elements of in set1 removed

11. The statement set1.difference(set2) is:

a. the set containing the elements that are in set1 with the elements of set2 removed **
b. the set containing the elements that are in set2 with the elements of in set1 removed
c. the set containing the elements that are in both set1 and set2
d. the set containing the elements that are in either set1 and set2 without duplicates

12. An attempt to open a nonexistent file for input:

a. generates a runtime error **
b. generates a syntax error
c. creates an empty input file
d. none of the above

13. If a file that already exists is opened for writing:

a. the contents of the file will be erased **
b. the new data to be written will be appended to the end of the rile
c. a Throwback error will occur

© 2016 Pearson Education, Inc., Hoboken, NJ. All rights reserved.

 d. the user will be prompted for the action they wish to take

14. The default mode for opening a file is

a. reading **
b. writing
c. appending
d. deleting

15. To avoid a potential runtime error when opening files for reading or writing:
a. use the os.path.isfile function **
b. use the os.path.file.exists function
c. prompt the user for the action to take if the file does not exist
d. use the Boolean value try to check if the file exists

16. What is the output of the following Python statement?

print (set(“bookkeeper”))
a. {‘b’, ‘o’, ‘k’, ‘e’, ‘p’, ‘r’} **
b. {‘b’, ‘o’, ‘o’, ‘k’, ‘k’, ‘e’, ‘e’, ‘p’, ‘e’, ‘r’}
c. {‘o’, ‘k’, ‘e’}
d. {‘b’, ‘p’, ‘r’}

17. Each line of a CSV file is referred to as a(n) __________.

a. record **
b. tuple
c. field
d. comma field

18. Each piece of data in a CSV file record is referred to as a(n) __________.
a. field **
b. record
c. tuple
d. line

19. In a dictionary, a pair such such as “dog” : “rover” is called a(n) __________.
a. item **
b. pair
c. key
d. couple

20. Which file format stores data as a sequence of types that can only be access by special readers?
a. binary **
b. text

© 2016 Pearson Education, Inc., Hoboken, NJ. All rights reserved.

 c. CSV-formatted
d. all of the above

21. In order for Python to use functions to work with binary files, you must first import which
standard library module?
a. pickle **
b. os
c. binaries
d. osfile

True/False (23)

1. After all the lines of a file have been read, the readline method returns the value None.

Answer: false

2. You must close a file in order to guarantee that all data has been physically written to the disk.

Answer: true

3. The remove and rename functions cannot be used with open files.

Answer: true

4. Sets cannot contain lists.

Answer: true

5. Sets can contain other sets.

Answer: false

6. Elements of a set have no order.

Answer: true

7. Elements of a set may be duplicated.

Answer: false

8. Two sets are equal if they contain the same elements.

Answer: true

9. Elements if a set cannot be ordered.

Answer: true

© 2016 Pearson Education, Inc., Hoboken, NJ. All rights reserved.

10. Sets cannot be created with comprehension.

Answer: false

11. infile is a descriptive name bot not mandatory for file input usage.

Answer: true

12. An attempt to open a nonexistent file for input generates a syntax error.

Answer: false

13. If a file that already exists is opened for writing, the contents of the file will be erased.

Answer: true

14. The default mode for opening a file is writing.

Answer: false

15. Only strings can be written to text file.

Answer: true

16. The value of set() is the empty set.

Answer: true

17. The data in the fields of each record in a CSV file normally should be related.

Answer: true

18. In a dictionary, keys must be immutable objects.

Answer: true

19. It is common to create dictionaries from text files.

Answer: true

20. Dictionaries cannot have other dictionaries as values.

Answer: false

21. A dictionary is an ordered structure that can be sorted.

Answer: false

22. Dictionaries cannot be created with comprehension.

© 2016 Pearson Education, Inc., Hoboken, NJ. All rights reserved.

 Answer: false

23. Dictionary comprehension can be used to extract a subset of a dictionary.

Answer: true

Short Answer (11)

1. Complete the following function to open the file for reading and read the contents into a single
string named contents.

def readFile(file):

Answer:
infile = open(file, ‘r’)
contents = infile.read()

2. Write a Python statement to open a file called names for writing and assign it to a variable called
outfile.

Answer: outfile = open(names, ‘w’)

3. Write a Python statement to open a file called grades with the intent to add values to the end of
the file and assign it to a variable called outfile.

Answer: outfile = open(grades, ‘a’)

4. Write a single Python statement to convert the list [“spring”, “summer”, “fall”, “winter”] to a set
called seasons.

Answer: seasons = set([“spring”, “summer”, “fall”, “winter”])

5. Write a single Python statement to convert the tuple (“spring”, “summer”, “fall”, “winter”) to a
set called seasons.

Answer: seasons = set((“spring”, “summer”, “fall”, “winter”))

6. Why can’t elements of a set be indexed?

Answer: Elements of a set cannot be indexed have no order.

7. Explain the difference between a simple text file and a CSV-formatted file.

Answer: A simple text file has a single piece of data per line. A CSV-formatter file has several items
of data on each line with items separated by commas.

8. Write a Python statement to create an empty dictionary called dogs.

© 2016 Pearson Education, Inc., Hoboken, NJ. All rights reserved.

Answer: dogs = { }

9. Write a Python statement to create a copy of the dictionary called dogs into a new dictionary
called canines.

Answer: canines = dict(dogs)

10. Create a dictionary called dogs for the following data.

Eddie Jack Russell

Lassie Collie
Ping Beagle

Answer: dogs = {“Eddie” : “Jack Russell”, “Lassie” : “Collie”, “Ping” : “Beagle”}

11. Why can’t lists and sets serve as keys for dictionaries?

Answer: Because dictionary keys must be immutable objects. Lists and sets are mutable.

© 2016 Pearson Education, Inc., Hoboken, NJ. All rights reserved.

Other documents randomly have
different content
those hills which had been reached unseen by us, and then began
one of the closest, because confused, most ferocious, and bloody
conflicts of modern times. The Russian has certainly that peculiar
quality of race, "which is superior to the common fighting courage
possessed indiscriminately by all classes--the passive concentrated
firmness which can take every advantage so long as a chance is left,
and die without a word at last, when hope gives place to the sullen
resignation of despair."

Descriptions of battles bear a strong family likeness, and the

history of one can only be written, even by a participant, long after it
is all over, and after notes are compared on all sides; so to the
subaltern, or any one under the rank of a general, during its
progress, it is all vile hurly-burly and confusion worse confounded;
and never in the annals of war was this more the case than at
Inkermann. Though hidden by mist at the time, the scene of this
contest was both picturesque and beautiful. In the foreground, a
romantic old bridge spanned the sluggish Tchernaya, which winds
from the Baidar valley through the most luxurious verdure, and
thence into the harbour of Sebastopol between precipitous white
cliffs, which are literally honeycombed with chapels and cells: thus
Inkermann is well named the "City of the Caverns." These are
supposed to have been executed by Greek monks during the reigns of
the emperors in the middle ages, and when the Arians were
persecuted in the Chersonesus, many of them found shelter in these
singular and all but inaccessible dwellings. Sarcophagi of stone,
generally empty, are found in many of the cells, which are connected
with each other by stairs cut in the living rock, and of these stairs and
holes the skirmishers were not slow to avail themselves. Over all
these caverns are the ivied ruins of an ancient fort but whether it was
the Ctenos of Chersonesus Taurica, built by Diophantes to guard the
Heruclean wall, or was the Theodori of the Greeks, mattered little to
us then, as we moved to get under fire beneath its shadow; and now,
as if to farther distract the attention of the Allies from the real point
of assault--which at first seemed to indicate a movement towards
Balaclava--all the batteries of the city opened a fearful cannonade,
which tore to shreds the tents in the camp, and did terrible execution
on every hand. Louder and louder, deeper and hoarser grew the
sounds of strife; yet nothing was seen by us save the red flashes of
the musketry, owing to the density of the fog, and the tall brushwood
through which we had to move being in some places quite breast-
high; and so we struggled forward in line, till suddenly we found the
foe within pistol-shot of us, and our men falling fast on every side. Till
now, to many in our ranks, who saw these long gray-coated and flat-
capped or spike-helmeted masses, the enemy had been a species of
myth, read of chiefly in the newspapers; now they were palpable and
real, and war, having ceased to be a dream, had become a terrible
fact. Vague expectancy had given place to the actual excitement of
the hour of battle, the hour when a man would reflect soberly if he
could; but when every moment may be his last, little time or chance
is given for reflection.

In this quarter were but twelve thousand British, to oppose the

mighty force of Osten-Sacken. Upon his advancing masses the brave
fellows of the 55th or Westmoreland Foot had kept up a brisk fire
from the rude embrasures of the small redoubt, till they were almost
surrounded by a force outnumbering them by forty to one, and
compelled to fall back, while the batteries on the hills swept their
ranks with an iron shower. But now the 41st Welsh, and 49th or
Hertfordshire, came into action, with their white-and-green colours
waving, and storming up the hill bore back the Russian hordes,
hundreds of whom--as they were massed in oblong columns--fell
beneath the fatal fire of our Minie rifles, and the desperate fury of the
steady shoulder-to-shoulder bayonet charge which followed it.

On these two regiments the batteries from the distant slope dealt
death and destruction; again the Russians rallied at its foot, and
advanced up the corpse-strewn ground to renew an attack before
which the two now decimated regiments were compelled to retire.
Their number and force were as overwhelming as their courage,
inflamed by raki and intense religious fervour, was undeniable; for
deep in all their hearts had sunk the closing words of the bishop's
prayer: "Bless and strengthen them, O Lord, and give them a manly
heart against their enemies. Send them an angel of light, and to their
enemies an angel of darkness and horror to scatter them, and place a
stumbling-block before them to weaken their hearts, and turn their
courage into flight." And for a time the Russians seemed to have it all
their own way, and deemed their bishop a prophet. Our whole army
was now under arms, but upon our right fell the brunt of the attack,
and old Lord Raglan was soon among us, managing his field-glass
and charger with one hand and a half-empty sleeve. Under Brigadier-
general Strangeways, who was soon after mortally wounded, our
artillery, when the mist lifted a little, opened on the Russian batteries,
and soon silenced their fire; but the 20th and 47th Lancashire, after
making a gallant attempt to recapture the petty redoubt, were
repulsed; but not until they had been in possession of it for a few
dearly-bought minutes, during which, all wedged together in wild
mêlée, the most hideous slaughter took place, with the bayonet and
clubbed musket; and the moment they gave way, the inhuman
Russians murdered all our wounded men, many of whom were found
afterwards cold and stiff, with hands uplifted and horror in their faces,
as if they had died in the act of supplication.

Driven from that fatal redoubt at last by the Guards under the
Duke of Cambridge, it was held by a few hundred Coldstreamers
against at least six thousand of the enemy. Thrice, with wild yells the
gray-coated masses, with all their bayonets glittering, swept madly
and bravely uphill, and thrice they were hurled back with defeat and
slaughter. Fresh troops were now pouring from Sebastopol, flushed
with fury by the scene, and in all the confidence that Russia and their
cause were alike holy, that defeat was impossible, and the redoubt
was surrounded.

Then back to back, pale with fury, their eyes flashing, their teeth
set, fearless and resolute, their feet encumbered with the dying and
the dead, fought the Coldstream Guardsmen, struggling for very life;
the ground a slippery puddle with blood and brains, and again and
again the clash of the bayonets was heard as the musket barrels were
crossed. Their ammunition was soon expended; but clubbing their
weapons they dashed at the enemy with the butt-ends; and hurling
even stones at their heads, broke through the dense masses, and
leaving at least one thousand Muscovites dead behind them, rejoined
their comrades, whom Sir George Cathcart was leading to the
advance, when a ball whistled through his heart, and he fell to rise no
more.

The combat was quite unequal; our troops began slowly to retire
towards their own lines, but fighting every inch of the way and
pressed hard by the Russians, who bayonetted or brained by the butt-
end every wounded man they found; and by eleven o'clock they were
close to the tents of the Second Division.

The rain of bullets sowed thickly all the turf like a leaden shower,
and shred away clouds of leaves and twigs from the gorse and other
bushes; but long ere the foe had come thus far, we had our share
and more in the terrible game. Exchanging fire with them at twenty
yards' distance, the roar of the musketry, the shouts and cheers, the
yells of defiance or agony, the explosion of shells overhead, the
hoarse sound of the round shot, as they tore up the earth in deeper
furrows than ever ploughshare formed, made a very hell of
Inkermann, that valley of blood and suffering, of death and cruelty;
but dense clouds of smoke, replacing the mist, enveloped it for a
time, and veiled many of its horrors from the eye.

Bathurst and Sayer, Vane and Millet of ours were all down by this
time; many of our men had also fallen; and from the death-clutch or
the relaxed fingers of more than one poor ensign had the tattered
colour which bore the Red Dragon been taken, by those who were
fated to fall under it in turn. I could see nothing of Caradoc; but I
heard that three balls had struck the revolver in his belt. Poor Hugh
Price fell near me, shot through the chest, and was afterwards found,
like many others, with his brains dashed out. In the third repulse of
the Russians, as we rushed headlong after them with levelled
bayonets, I found myself suddenly opposed by an officer of rank
mounted on a gray horse, the flanks and trappings of which were
splashed by blood, whether its own or that of the rider, I knew not.
Furiously, by every energy, with his voice, which was loud and
authoritative, and by brandishing his sword, he was endeavouring to
rally his men, a mingled mass of the Vladimir Battalion and the flat-
capped Kazan Light Infantry.

"Pot that fellow; down with him!" cried several voices; "maybe he's
old Osten-Sacken himself."

Many shots missed him, as the men fired with fixed bayonets,
when suddenly he turned his vengeance on me, and checking his
horse for a second, cut at my head with his sword. Stooping, I
avoided his attack, but shot his horse in the head. Heavily the animal
tumbled forward, with its nose between its knees; and as the rider
fell from the saddle and his cap flew off, I recognised Volhonski. A
dozen of Fusileers had their bayonets at his throat, when I struck
them up with my sword, and interceding, took him prisoner.

"Allow me, if taken, to preserve my sword," said he, in somewhat

broken English.

"No, no; by ----, no! disarm him, Captain Hardinge," cried several
of our men, who had already shot more than one Russian officer
when in the act of killing the wounded.

He smiled with proud disdain, and snapping the blade across his
knee, threw the fragments from him.

"Though it is a disgrace alike for Russian to retreat or yield, I yield

myself to you, Captain Hardinge," said he in French, and presenting
his hand; but ere I could take it, I felt a shot strike me on the back
part of the head. Luckily it was a partially spent one, though I knew it
not then.

A sickness, a faintness, came over me, and I had a wild and

clamorous fear that all was up with me then; but I strove to ignore
the emotion, to brandish my sword, to shout to my company, "Come
on, men, come on!" to carry my head erect, soldierlike and proudly.
Alas for human nerves and poor human nature! My voice failed me; I
reeled. "Spare me, blessed God!" I prayed, then fell forward on my
face, and felt the rush of our own men, as they swept forward in the
charge to the front; and then darkness seemed to steal over my
sight, and unconsciousness over every other sense, and I
remembered no more.

So while I lay senseless there, the tide of battle turned in the

valley, and re-turned again. But not till General Canrobert, with three
regiments of fiery little Zouaves, five of other infantry, and a strong
force of artillery, made a furious attack on the Russian flank, with all
his drums beating the pas de charge. The issue of the battle was then
no longer doubtful.

The Russians wavered and broke, and with a strange wail of

despair, such as that they gave at Alma, when they feared that the
angel of light had left them, they fled towards Sebastopol, trodden
down like sheep by the French and British soldiers, all mingled pell-
mell, in fierce and vengeful pursuit. By three in the afternoon all was
over, and we had won another victory.

But our losses were terrible. Seven of our generals were killed or
wounded; we had two thousand five hundred and nine officers and
men killed, wounded, or missing; but more than fourteen thousand
Russians lay on the ground which had been by both armies so nobly
contested, and of these five thousand were killed.

CHAPTER XXXVII.--THE ANGEL OF HORROR.

 When consciousness returned, I found the dull red evening sun
shining down the long valley of Inkermann, and that, save moans and
cries for aid and water, all seemed terribly still now.

A sense of weakness and oppression, of incapacity for action and

motion, were my first sensations. I feared that other shot must have
struck me after I had fallen, and that both my legs were broken. The
cause of this, after a time, became plain enough: a dead artillery
horse was lying completely over my thighs, and above it and them lay
the wheel of a shattered gun carriage; and weak as I was then, to
attempt extrication from either unaided was hopeless. Thus I was
compelled to lie helplessly amid a sickening puddle of blood, enduring
a thirst that is unspeakable, but which was caused by physical causes
and excitement, with the anxiety consequent on the battle. The
aspect of the dead horse, which first attracted me, was horrible. A
twelve-pound shot had struck him below the eyes, making a hole
clean through his head; the brain had dropped out, and lay with his
tongue and teeth upon the grass. The dead and wounded lay thickly
around me, as indeed they did over all the field. Some of the former,
though with eyes unclosed and jaws relaxed, had a placid expression
in their white waxen faces. These had died of gun-shot wounds. The
expressions of pain or anguish lingered longest in those who had
perished by the bayonet. Over all the valley lay bodies in heaps,
singly or by two and threes, with swarms of flies settling over them;
shakoes, glazed helmets, bearskin-caps, bent bayonets, broken
muskets, swords, hairy knapsacks, bread-bags, shreds of clothing,
torn from the dead and the living by showers of grape and canister,
cooking-kettles, round shot and fragments of shells, with pools of
noisome blood, lay on every hand.

Truly the Angel of Horror, and of Death, too, had been there. I saw
several poor fellows, British as well as Russian, expire within the first
few minutes I was able to look around me. One whose breast bore
several medals and orders, an officer of the Kazan Light Infantry,
prayed very devoutly and crossed himself in his own blood ere he
expired. Near me a corporal of my own regiment named Prouse, who
had been shot through the brain, played fatuously for a time with a
handful of grass, and then, lying gently back, passed away without a
moan. A Zouave, a brown, brawny, and soldier-like fellow, who
seemed out of his senses also, was very talkative and noisy.

"Ouf!" I heard him say; "it is as wearisome as a sermon or a

funeral this! Were I a general, the capture of Sebastopol should be as
easy as a game of dominoes.--Yes, Isabeau, ma belle coquette, kiss
me and hold up my head. Vive la gloire! Vive l'eau de vie! A bas la
mélancolie! A bas la Russe!" he added through his clenched teeth
hoarsely, as he fell back. The jaw relaxed, his head turned on one
side, and all was over.

Of Volhonski I could see nothing except his gray horse, which lay
dead, in all its trappings, a few yards off; but I afterwards learned
that he had been retaken by the Russians on their advance after the
fall of poor Sir George Cathcart.

There was an acute pain in the arm that had been injured--
fractured--when saving Estelle; and as a kind of stupor, filled by sad
and dreamy thoughts, stole over me, they were all of her. The roar of
the battle had passed away, but there was a kind of drowsy hum in
my ears, and, for a time, strangely enough, I fancied myself with her
in the Park or Rotten-row. I seemed to see the brilliant scene in all
the glory of the season: the carriages; the horses, bay or black, with
their shining skins and glittering harness; the powdered coachmen on
their stately hammer-cloths; the gaily-liveried footmen; the ladies
cantering past in thousands, so exquisitely dressed, so perfectly
mounted, so wonderful in their loveliness--women the most beautiful
in the world; and there, too, were the young girls, whose season was
to come, and the ample dowagers, whose seasons were long since
past, lying back among the cushions, amid ermine and fur; and with
all this Estelle was laughing and cantering by my side. Then we were
at the opera--another fantastic dream--the voices of Grisi and Mario
were blending there, and as its music seemed to die away, once more
we were at Craigaderyn, under its shady woods, with the green
Welsh hills, snow-capped Snowdon and Carneydd Llewellyn, in the
distance, and voices and music and laughter--some memory of Dora's
fête--seemed to be about us. So while lying there, on that ghastly
field of Inkermann, between sleeping and waking, I dreamed of her
who was so far away--of the sweet companionship that might never
come again; of the secret tie that bound us; of the soft dark eyes that
whilom had looked lovingly into mine; of the sweetly-modulated voice
that was now falling merrily, perhaps, on other ears, and might fall on
mine no more. And a vague sense of happiness, mingled with the
pain caused by the half-spent shot and the wild confusion and
suffering of the time, stole over me. Waking, these memories became

"Sad as remembered kisses after death,

And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned
On lips that are for others--deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret,
O death in life--the days that are no more!"

From all this I was thoroughly roused by a voice crying, "Up, up,
wounded--all you who are able! Cavalry are coming this way--you will
be trod to death. Arrah, get out of that, every man-jack of yees!"

The excited speaker was an Irish hussar, picking his way across the
field at a quick trot.

It was a false alarm; but the rumble of wheels certainly came next
day, and an ambulance-wagon passed slowly, picking up the
wounded, who groaned or screamed as their fractured limbs were
handled, and their wounds burst out afresh through the clotted blood.
I waved an arm, and the scarlet sleeve attracted attention.

"There is a wounded officer--one of the 23rd Fusileers," cried a

driver from his saddle.

"Where?" asked a mounted officer in the blue cloak and cap of the
Land Transport Corps.

"Under that dead horse, sir."

 "One of the 23rd; let us see--Hardinge, by all the devils!" said the
officer, who proved to be no other than Hawkesby Guilfoyle. "So-ho--
steady, steady!" he added, while secretly touching his horse with the
spurs to make it rear and plunge in three several attempts to tread
me under its hoofs; but the terrible aspect of the dead animal
smashed by the cannon-shot so scared the one he rode, that he bore
on the curb in vain.

"Coward! coward!" I exclaimed, "if God spares me you shall hear of

this."

"The fellow is mad or tipsy," said he; "drive on."

"But, sir--sir!" urged the driver in perplexity.

"Villain! you are my evil fate," said I faintly.

"I tell you the fellow is mad--drive on, I command you, or by----,
I'll make a prisoner of you!" thundered Guilfoyle, drawing a pistol
from his holster, while his shifty green eyes grew white with
suppressed passion and malice; so the ambulance-cart was driven on,
and I was left to my fate.

Giddy and infuriated by pain and just indignation, I lay under my

cold and ghastly load, perishing of thirst, and looking vainly about for
assistance.

Scarcely were they gone, when out of the dense thick brushwood,
that grew in clumps and tufts over all the valley, there stole forth two
Russian soldiers, with their bayonets fixed, and their faces distorted
and pale with engendered fanaticism and fury at their defeat. There
was a cruel gleam in their eyes as they crept stealthily about. Either
they feared to fire or their ammunition was expended, for I saw them
deliberately pass their bayonets through the bodies of four or five
wounded men, and pin the writhing creatures to the earth. I lay very
still, expecting that my turn would soon come. The dead horse served
to conceal me for a little; but I panted rather than breathed, and my
breath came in gasps as they drew near me; for on discovering that I
was an officer, my gold wings and lace would be sure to kindle their
spirit of acquisition. I had my revolver in my right hand, and
remembered with grim joy that of its six chambers, three were yet
undischarged. Just as the first Russian came straight towards me, I
shot him through the head, and he fell backward like a log; the
second uttered a howl, and came rushing on with his butt in the air
and his bayonet pointed down. I fired both barrels. One ball took him
right in the shoulder, the other in the throat, and he fell wallowing in
blood, but not until he had hurled his musket at me. The barrel struck
me crosswise on the head, and I again became insensible. Moonlight
was stealing over the valley when consciousness returned again, and
I felt more stiff and more helpless than ever. Something was stirring
near me; I looked up, and uttered an exclamation on seeing our
regimental goat, Carneydd Llewellyn, quietly cropping some herbage
among the débris of dead bodies and weapons that lay around me.
Like Caradoc, I had made somewhat a pet of it. The poor animal
knew my voice, and on coming towards me, permitted me to stroke
and pat it; and a strong emotion of wonder and regard filled my heart
as I did so, for it was a curious coincidence that this animal, once the
pet of Winifred Lloyd, should discover me there upon the field of
Inkermann.

After a little I heard a voice, in English, cry, "Here is our goat at

last, by the living Jingo!" and Dicky Roll, its custodian--from whose
tent it had escaped, when a shot from the batteries broke the pole--
came joyfully towards it.

"Roll, Dicky Roll," cried I, "for God's sake bring some of our
fellows, and have me taken from here!"

"Captain Hardinge! are you wounded, sir?" asked the little

drummer, stooping in commiseration over me.

"Badly, I fear, but cannot tell with certainty."

 Dicky shouted in his shrill boyish voice, and in a few minutes some
of our pioneers and bandsmen came that way with stretchers. I was
speedily freed from my superincumbent load, and very gently and
carefully borne rearward to my tent, when it was found that a couple
of contusions on the head were all I had suffered, and that a little
rest and quiet would soon make me fit for duty again.

"You must be more than ever careful of our goat, Dicky," said I, as
the small warrior, who was not much taller than his own bearskin cap,
was about to leave me (by the bye, my poor fellow Evans had been
cut in two by a round shot). "But for Carneydd Llewellyn, I might
have lain all night on the field."

"There is a date scratched on one of his horns, sir," said Roll; "I
saw it to-day for the first time."

"A date!--what date?"

"Sunday, 21st August."

"Sunday, 21st August," I repeated; "what can that refer to?"

"I don't know, sir--do you?"

The drummer saluted and left the tent. I lay on my camp-bed

weak and feverish, so weak, that I could almost have wept; for now
came powerfully back to memory that episode, till then forgotten--the
Sunday ramble I had with Winifred Lloyd when we visited the goat,
by the woods of Craigaderyn, by the cavern in the glen, by the Maen
Hir or the Giant's Grave, and the rocking stone, and all that passed
that day, and how she wept when I kissed her. Poor Winifred! her
pretty white hand must have engraved the date which the little
drummer referred to--a date which was evidently dwelling more in
her artless mind than in mine.
 CHAPTER XXXVIII.--THE CAMP AGAIN.

After the living were mustered next morning, and burial parties
detailed to inter the dead, Caradoc and one or two others dropped
into my tent to share some tiffin and a cigar or two with me; for, as
Digby Grand has it, "whatever people's feelings may be, they go to
dine all the same."

Poor Phil looked as pale and weary, if not more so, than I did. He
was on the sick-list also, and had his head tied up by a bloody
bandage, necessitated by a pretty trenchant sword-cut, dealt, as we
afterwards discovered on comparing notes, by Volhonski just before
his recapture.

"I was first knocked over by Cathcart's riderless horse--"

"Poor old Cathcart--a Waterloo man!" said Gwynne, parenthetically.

"Well, Phil?"

"It was wounded and mad with terror," continued Caradoc; "then
the splinter of a shell struck me on the left leg. Still I limped to the
front, keeping the men together and close to the colours, till that
fellow you call Volhonski cut me across the head; even my bearskin
failed to protect me from his sabre. Then, but not till then, when
blood blinded me, I threw up the sponge and went to the rear."

"What news of our friends in the 19th?" I asked.

"O, the old story, many killed and wounded."

"Little Tom Clavell?"

 "Untouched. Had the staff of the Queen's colours smashed in his
hands by a grape shot. Tom is now a bigger man than ever," said
Charley Gwynne. "By the way, he was talking of Miss Dora Lloyd last
night in my bunk between the gabions, wondering what she and the
girls in England think of all this sort of thing."

"Thank God, they know nothing about it!" said Caradoc, lighting a
fresh cigar with a twisted cartridge paper; "the hearts of some of
them would break, could they see but yonder valley."

"Poor Hugh Price!" observed Charley, with a sigh and a grimace,

for he had a bayonet prod in the right arm; "he was fairly murdered
in cold blood by one of those Kazan fellows--brained clean by the heel
of a musket, ere our bandsmen could carry him off to the hospital
tents; but I am thankful the assassin did not escape."

"How?"

"He too was finished the next moment by Evan Rhuddlan."

Other instances of assassination, especially by a Russian major,

were mentioned, and execrations both loud and deep were muttered
by us all at these atrocities, which ultimately caused Lord Raglan to
send a firm remonstrance on the subject to Sebastopol.

"Is it true, Charley, that the Duke of Cambridge has gone on board
ship, sick and exhausted?" asked I.

"I believe so."

"And that Marshal Canrobert was wounded yesterday?"

"Yes, and had his horse shot under him, too."

"The poor Coldstreamers were fearfully cut up in the redoubt!"

"I saw eight of their officers interred in one grave this morning,
and three of the Grenadier Guards in another."
 "Poor fellows!" sighed Caradoc; "so full of life but a few hours
ago."

For a time the conversation, being of this nature, languished; it

was the reverse of lively, so we smoked in silence. We were all in
rather low spirits. This was simply caused by reaction after the fierce
excitement of yesterday, and to regret for the friends who had fallen--
the brave and true-hearted fellows we had lost for ever. Victorious
though we were, we experienced but little exultation; and from my
tent door, we saw the burial parties, British and French, hard at work
in their shirt sleeves, interring the slain in great trenches, where they
were flung over each other in rows, with all their gory clothing and
accoutrements, just as they were found; and there they lay in ghastly
ranks, their pallid faces turned to heaven, the hope of many a heart
and household that were far away from that horrible valley; their
joys, their sorrows, their histories, and their passing agonies all ended
now, with no tears on their cheek save those with which the hand of
God bedews the dead face of the poor soldier.

A ring or a watch, or it might be a lock of hair, taken, or perhaps

hastily shorn by a friendly hand from the head of a dead officer as he
was borne away to these pits--the head that some one loved so well,
hanging earthward heavily and untended--shorn for a widowed wife
or anxious mother, then at home in peaceful England, or some
secluded Scottish glen; and there his obsequies were closed by the
bearded and surpliced chaplain, who stood book in hand by the edge
of the ghastly trench, burying the dead wholesale by the thousand;
and amid the boom of the everlasting and unrelenting cannonade,
now going on at the left attack, might be heard the solemn sentences
attuned to brighter hopes elsewhere than on earth, where "Death
seemed scoffed at and derided by the reckless bully Life."

"Here is an old swell, with no end of decorations," said a couple of

our privates, as they trailed past the body of a Russian officer, one
half of whose head had been shot away, and they threw him into a
trench where the gray-coats lay in hundreds. The "old swell" proved
to be the brave Pulkovnich Ochterlony of Guynde; he who had led his
regiment so bravely at Bayazid on the mountain slopes of the Aghri
Tagh in Armenia, when, in the preceding August, the Russians had
defeated the Turks, and laid two thousand scarlet fezzes in the dust.
The episode of meeting with Guilfoyle, his conduct after the action,
and the character he had borne as a civilian, formed a topic of some
interest for my friends, who were vehement in urging me to
denounce this distinguished "cornet" of the wagon-corps to the
commander-in-chief. And this I resolved to do so soon as I was
sufficiently recovered to write, or to visit Lord Raglan in person.

But to take action in the matter soon proved impossible, as he was

taken prisoner the next day by some Cossacks who were scouting
near the Baidar Valley, and who instantly carried him off. Some there
were in the camp who gave this capture the very different name of
wilful desertion, from two reasons; first, he had been gambling to a
wonderful extent, and with all his usual success, so that he had
completely rooked many of his brother officers, nearly all of whom
were deserving men from the ranks; and second, that on the day
after he was taken, the Russians opened a dreadful fire of shot and
shell on one of our magazines, the exact locale of which could only
have been indicated to them by some traitor safe within their own
lines; and none knew better than I the savage treachery of which he
was capable.

It was now asserted that we should not assault Sebastopol until

the arrival of fresh reinforcements, which were expected by the way
of Constantinople in a few weeks. There were said to be fifteen
thousand French, and our own 97th, or Earl of Ulster's, and 99th
Lanarkshire coming from Greece, with the 28th from Malta; but that
we were likely to winter before the besieged city was now becoming
pretty evident to the Allies, and none of us liked the prospect, the
French perhaps least of all, with the freezing memories of their old
Russian war and the retreat from flaming Moscow still spoken of in
their ranks; and the cruel and taunting boast of the Emperor Nicholas
concerning Russia's two most conquering generals--January and
February.
 So when the wood for the erection of huts began to arrive at
Balaclava, and the winter siege became a prospect that was
inevitable, I thought of having a wigwam built for myself and two
other officers; and confess that as the season advanced, some such
habitation would have been more acceptable than my bell-tent,
which, like much more of our warlike gear, had probably lain in some
of John Bull's shabby peace-at-any-price repositories since Waterloo,
and was all decaying. Hence the door was always closed with
difficulty, especially on cold nights, the straps being rotten and the
buckles rusty. Add to this, that our camp-bedding and clothes were
alike dropping to pieces--the result of constant wet and damp.
Already no two soldiers in our ranks were clad alike; they looked like
well-armed vagrants, and wore comically-patched clothing, with caps
of all kinds, gleaned off the late field or near the burial trenches.
Some of the Rifles, in lieu of dark green, were fain to wear smocks
made by themselves from old blankets, and leggings made of the
same material or old sacking, and many linesmen, who were less
fortunate, had to content them with the rags of their uniforms. Happy
indeed were the Highlanders, who had no trousers that wore out.
Alas for those to whom a flower in the button-hole, kid gloves, glazed
boots, and Rimmel's essences, were as the necessaries of life! But ere
the wished-for materials for my hut arrived, circumstances I could
little have foreseen found me quarters in a very different place. Every
other day I was again on duty in the trenches, and without the aid of
my field-glass could distinctly see the dark groups of the enemy's
outposts, extending from the right up the valley of Inkermann,
towards Balaclava.

The rain rendered our nights and days in the trenches simply
horrible; as we had to shiver there for four-and-twenty hours, literally
in mud that rose nearly to our knees, and was sometimes frozen--
especially towards the darkest and earliest hours of the morning,
when the cold would cause even strong and brave fellows almost to
sob with weakness and debility, while we huddled together like sheep
for animal warmth, listening the while, perhaps, for a sound that
might indicate a Russian mine beneath us. Those who had tobacco
smoked, of course, and shared it freely with less fortunate comrades,
who had none; and under circumstances such as ours, great indeed
was the solace of a pipe, though some found their tobacco too wet to
smoke; then the Russians and the rain were cursed alike. The latter
also often reduced the biscuits in our havresacks to a wet and dirty
pulp; but hunger made us thankful to have it, even in that condition.

"By Jove," one would say, "how the rain comes down! Awful, isn't
it?"

"Won't spoil our uniforms, Bill, anyhow."

"No, lads, they are past spoiling," said I, and often had to add,
"keep your firelocks under your greatcoats, men, and look to your
ammunition."

And such care was imperatively necessary, for on dark nights

especially we never knew the moment when an attempt to scour the
trenches might bring on another Inkermann. So we would sit
cowering between the gabions, while ever and anon the fiery bombs,
often shot at random, came in quick succession through the dark sky
of night, making bright and glittering arcs as they sped on their
message of destruction, sometimes falling short and bursting in mid-
air, or on the earth and throwing up a column of dust and stones, and
sometimes fairly into the trenches, scattering death and mutilation
among us. Erelong, as the season drew on, we had the snow to add
to our miseries, and for many an hour under the lee of a gabion I
have sat, half awake and half torpid, watching the white flakes falling,
like glittering particles, athwart the slanting moonlight on the pale
and upturned faces and glistening eyes of the dead, on their black
and gaping wounds, and tattered uniform; for many perished nightly
in the trenches, on some occasions over a hundred; and at times and
places their bodies were so frozen to the earth, that to remove or
tear them up was impossible, so they had to be left where they lay, or
be covered up pro tem, with a little loose soil, broken by a sapper's
pickaxe. And with the endurance of all this bodily misery, I had the
additional grief that no letters ever came from Estelle for me. My
dream-castle was beginning to crumble down. I began to feel vaguely
that something had been taken out of my life, that life itself was less
worth having now, and that the beauty of the past was fading
completely away. I had but one conviction or wish--that I had never
met, had never known, or had never learned to love her.

CHAPTER XXXIX.--A MAIL FROM ENGLAND.

THE dreamy conviction or thought with which the last chapter

closes, proved, perhaps, but a foreshadowing of that which was
looming in the future. On the day after that terrible storm of wind,
rain, and hail in the Black Sea, when some five hundred seamen were
drowned, and when so many vessels perished, causing an immense
loss to the Allies; a terrific gale, such as our oldest naval officers had
never seen; when the tents in camp were uprooted in thousands, and
swept in rags before the blast; when the horses broke loose from
their picketing-ropes, and forty were found dead from cold and
exposure; when every imaginable article was blown hither and thither
through the air; and when, without food, fire, or shelter, even the sick
and wounded passed a night of privation and misery such as no
human pen can describe, and many of the Light Division were
thankful to take shelter in the old caverns and cells of Inkermann--on
the 15th of November, the day subsequent to this terrible destruction
by land and water, there occurred an episode in my own story which
shall never be forgotten by me.

Singular to say, amid all the vile hurly-burly incident to the storm, a
disturbance increased by the roar of the Russian batteries, and a
sortie on the French, a mail from England reached our division, and it
contained one letter for me.

Prior to my opening it, as I failed to recognise the writing, Phil

Caradoc (wearing a blanket in the fashion of a poncho-wrapper, a
garment to which his black bearskin cap formed an odd finish)
entered my tent, which had just been re-erected with great difficulty,
and I saw that he had a newspaper in his hand, and very cloudy
expression in his usually clear brown eyes.

"What is up, Phil?" said; "a bad report of our work laid before the
public, or what?"

"Worse than that," said he, seating himself on the empty flour-cask
which served me for a table. "Can you steel yourself to hear bad
news?"

"From home?" I asked.

"Well, yes," said he, hesitating, and a chill came over my heart as I
said involuntarily,

"Estelle?"

"Yes, about Lady Cressingham."

"What--what--don't keep me in suspense!" I exclaimed, starting

up.

"She is, I fear, lost to you for ever, Hardinge."

"Ill--dead--O, Phil, don't say dead!"

"No, no."

"Thank God! What, then, is the matter?"

"She is--married, that is all."

 "Married!"

"Poor Harry! I am deuced sorry for you. Look at this paper.

Perhaps I shouldn't have shown it to you; but some one less a friend-
-Mostyn or Clavell--might have thrown it in your way. Besides, you
must have learned the affair in time. Take courage," he added, after a
pause, during which a very stunned sensation pervaded me; "be a
man; she is not worth regretting."

"To whom is she married?" I asked, in a low voice.

"Pottersleigh," said he, placing in my hand the paper, which was a

Morning Post.

I crushed it up into a ball, and then, spreading it out on the head

of the inverted cask, read, while my hands trembled, and my heart
grew sick with many contending emotions, a long paragraph which
Phil indicated, and which ran somewhat as follows, my friend the
while standing quietly by my side, manipulating a cheroot prior to
lighting it with a cinder from my little fire. The piece of fashionable
gossip was headed, "Marriage of the Right Hon. the Earl of
Aberconway and the Lady Estelle Cressingham;" and detailed, in the
usual style of such announcements, that, on a certain--I forget which
day now--the lovely and secluded little village of Walcot, in
Hampshire, presented quite a festive appearance in honour of the
above-named event, the union of the young and beautiful daughter
of the late Earl of Naseby to our veteran statesman; that along the
route from the gates of Walcot Park to the porch of the village church
were erected several arches of evergreen, tastefully surmounted by
banners and appropriate mottoes. Among the former "we observed
the arms of the now united noble houses of Potter and Cressingham,
and the standards of the Allies now before Sebastopol. The beautiful
old church of Walcot was adorned with flowers, and crowded to
excess long before the hour appointed. The lovely bride was
charmingly attired in white satin, elegantly trimmed with white lace,
and wore a wreath of orange blossoms on her splendid dark hair,
covered with a long veil, à la juive. The bridesmaids, six in number,
were as follows:" but I omit their names as well as the list of gifts
bestowed upon the noble bride, who was given away by her cousin,
the young earl. "Lord Aberconway, with his ribbon of the Garter, wore
the peculiar uniform of the Pottersleigh Yeomanry."

"Rather a necessary addition," said Phil, parenthetically; "his

lordship could scarcely have figured in the ribbon alone."

"--Yeomanry, of which gallant regiment he is colonel, and looked

hale and well for his years. After a choice déjeûner provided for a
distinguished circle, the newly-wedded pair left Walcot Park, amid the
most joyous demonstrations, for Pottersleigh Hall, the ancestral seat
of the noble Earl, to spend the honeymoon."

"A precious flourish of penny whistles!" said Phil, when I had read,
deliberately folded the paper, and thrust it into the fire, to the end
that I might not be troubled by the temptation to read it all over
again; and then we looked at each other steadily for a minute in
silence. Forsaken! I remembered my strange forebodings now, when
I had ridden to Walcot Park. They were married--married, she and old
Pottersleigh! My heart seemed full of tears, yet when seating myself
wearily on the camp-bed, I laughed bitterly and scornfully, as I
thought over the inflated newspaper paragraph, and that the sangre
azul of the Earl of Aberconway must be thin and blue indeed, when
compared with the red blood of my less noble self.

"Come, Harry, don't laugh--in that fashion at least," said Caradoc.

"I've some brandy here," he added, unslinging his canteen, "I got
from a confiding little vivandière of the 10th Regiment, Infanterie de
Ligne. Don't mix it with the waters of Marah, the springs of
bitterness, but take a good caulker neat, and keep up your heart.
Varium et mutabile semper--you know the last word is feminine. That
is it, my boy--nothing more. Even the wisest man in the world,
though he dearly loved them, could never make women out; and I
fear, Harry, that you and I are not even the wisest men in the Welsh
Fusileers. And now as a consolation,
'And that your sorrow may not be a dumb one,
Write odes on the inconstancy of woman.'"

"I loved that girl very truly, very honestly, and very tenderly, Phil,"
said I, in a low voice, and heedless of how he had been running on;
"and she kissed me when I left her, as I then thought and hoped a
woman only kisses once on earth. In my sleep I have had a
foreshadowing of this. Can it be that the slumber of the body is but
the waking of the soul, that such thoughts came to me of what was
to be?"

"The question is too abstruse for me," said Caradoc, stroking his
brown beard, which was now of considerable length and volume; "but
don't worry yourself, Harry; you have but tasted, as I foresaw you
would, of the hollow-heartedness, the puerile usages, the petty
intrigues, and the high-born snobbery of those exclusives 'the upper
ten thousand.' Don't think me republican for saying so; but 'there is
one glory of the sun and another of the moon,' as some one writes;
'and there is one style of beauty among women which is angelic, and
another which is not,' referring, I presume, to beauty of the spirit. We
were both fated to be unlucky in our loves," continued Caradoc,
taking a vigorous pull at the little plug-hole of his canteen, a tiny
wooden barrel slung over his shoulder by a strap; "but do take
courage, old fellow, and remember there are other women in the
world in plenty."

"But not for me," said I, bitterly.

"Tush! think of me, of my affair--I mean my mistake with Miss

Lloyd."

"But she never loved you."

"Neither did this Lady Estelle, now Countess of Aberconway" (I

ground my teeth), "love you."
 "She said she did; and what has it all come to? promises broken, a
plight violated, a heart trod under foot."

"Come, come; don't be melodramatic--it's d--d absurd, and no use.

Besides, there sounds the bugle for orders, and we shall have to
relieve the trenches in an hour. So take another cigar ere you go."

"She never loved me--never! never! you are right, Phil."

"And yet I believe she did."

"Did!" said I, angrily; "what do you mean now, Caradoc? I am in

no mood to study paradoxes."

"I mean that she loved you to a certain extent; but not well
enough to sacrifice herself and her--"

"Don't say position--hang it!"

"No--no."

"What then?" I asked, impatiently.

"Her little luxuries, and all that she must have lost by the tenor of
her father's will and her mother's bad will, or that she should have
omitted to gain, had she married you, a simple captain of the 23rd
Foot, instead of this old Potter--this Earl of Aberconway."

"A simple captain, indeed!"

"Pshaw, Harry, be a man, and think no more about the affair. It is

as a tale that is told, a song that is sung, a bottle of tolerable wine
that has become a marine."

"L'infidelité du corps, ou l'infidelité du c[oe]ur, I care not now

which it was; but I am done with her now and for ever," I exclaimed,
with a sudden gust of rage, while clasping on my sword.
 "Done--so I should think, when she is married."

"But to such a contemptible dotard."

"Well, there is some revenge in that."

"And she could cast me aside like an old garment," said I, lapsing
into tenderness again; "I, to whose neck she clung as she did on that
evening we parted. There must have been some trickery--some
treachery, of which we are the victims!"

"Don't go on in this way, like a moonstruck boy, or, by Jove, the

whole regiment will find it out; so calm yourself, for we go to the
front in an hour;" and wringing my hand this kind-hearted fellow,
whose offhand consolation was but ill-calculated to soothe me, left
for his own tent, as he had forgotten his revolver.

I was almost stupefied by the shock. Could the story be real? I

looked to the little grate (poor Evans' contrivance) where the charred
remains of the Morning Post still flickered in the wind. Was I the same
man of an hour ago? "The plains of life were free to traverse," as an
elegant female writer says, "but the sunshine of old lay across them
no longer. There were roses, but they were scentless--fruits, but they
were tasteless--wine, but it had lost its flavour. Well, every created
being must come to an hour like this, when he feels there is nothing
pleasant to the palate, or grateful to the sense, agreeable to the ear,
or refreshing to the heart; when man delights him not and woman
still less, and when he is sick of the dream of existence."

To this state had I come, and yet I had neither seen nor heard the
last of her.

"Estelle--Estelle!" I exclaimed in a low voice, and my arms went

out into vacancy, to fall back on the camp-bed whereon I reclined.
Abandoned for another; forgotten it might too probably--nay, must
be. I stared up, and looked from the triangular door of the tent over
the wilderness of zigzags, the sand-bags, and fascines of the
trenches; over the gun-batteries to the white houses and green
domes of Sebastopol, and all down the long valley of Inkermann,
where the graves of the dead lay so thick and where the Russian
pickets were quietly cooking their dinners; but I could see nothing
distinctly. The whole features of the scenery seemed blurred, faint,
and blended, for my head was swimming, my heart was sick, and all,
all this was the doing of Estelle! Did no memory of sweet Winifred
Lloyd come to me in my desolation of the heart? None! I could but
think of the cold-blooded treachery of the one I had lost. My letter! I
suddenly remembered it, and tore it open, thinking that the writer,
whose hand, as I have said, I failed to recognise, might cast some
light upon the matter; and to my increasing bewilderment, it proved
to be from Winifred herself. A letter from her, and to me; what could
it mean? But the first few words sufficed to explain.

Craigaderyn, . . . .

"My dear Captain Hardinge,--Papa has sprained his whip hand

when hunting with Sir Watkins Vaughan, and so compels me to write
for him." (Why should compulsion be necessary? thought I.) "You will,
no doubt, have heard all about Lady Estelle's marriage by this time.
She was engaged to Lord Pottersleigh before she came here, it would
seem, and matters were brought to an issue soon after your transport
sailed. She wished Dora and me to be among her bridesmaids, but
we declined; nor would papa have permitted us, had we desired to be
present at the ceremony. She bade me say, if I wrote to you, that you
must forgive her, as she is the victim of circumstances; that she shall
ever esteem and love you as a brother, and so forth; but I agree with
papa, who says that she is a cold-hearted jilt, undeserving of any
man's love, and that he 'will never forgive her, even if he lived as long
as Gwyllim ap Howel ap Jorwerth ap Tregaian,' the Old Parr of Wales.

"We are all well at Craigaderyn, and all here send you and Mr.
Caradoc kindest love. We are quite alone just now, and I often idle
over my music, playing 'The Men of Harlech,' and other Welsh airs to
papa. More often I wander and ride about the Martens' dingle, by
Carneydd Llewellyn's hut--you remember it?--by Glendower's oak, by
the Elwey, Llyn Aled, and the rocking stone, and think--think very
much of you and poor Mr. Caradoc, and all that might have been."
(Pretty pointed this--with which--Phil or me? Could I be uncertain?)
"Next to hearing from you, our greatest pleasure at Craigaderyn is to
hear about you and our own Welsh Fusileers, of whose bravery at
Alma we are so justly proud; so we devour the newspapers with
avidity and too often with sorrow. How is my dear pet goat?"

And so, with a pretty little prayer that I might be spared, her letter
ended; and hearing the voices of the adjutant and sergeant-major, I
thrust it into my pocket, and set off to relieve the trenches, with less
of enthusiasm and more recklessness of life than ever before
possessed me, and without reflecting that I did not deserve to receive
a letter so kind and prayerful as that of the dear little Welsh girl, who
was so far away. It was cold that night in the trenches, nathless the
Russian fire--yea, cold enough to freeze the marrow in one's bones;
but my heart seemed colder still. In the morning, four of my company
were found dead between the gabions, without a wound, and with
their muskets in their hands. The poor fellows had gone to their last
account--slipt away in sheer exhaustion, through lack of food,
warmth, and clothing--and this was glory!

CHAPTER XL.--A PERILOUS DUTY.

I have said that, ere the regular hutting of the army for the winter
siege began, quarters were found for me by fate elsewhere; a
circumstance which came about in the following manner. All may have
heard of the famous solitary ride of Lieutenant Maxse of the Royal
Navy, to open a communication between headquarters and Balaclava;
and it was my chance to have a similar solitary ride to perform, but,
unfortunately, to fail in achieving the end that was in view. One
afternoon, on being informed by the adjutant of ours that I was
wanted at headquarters, I assumed my sword and sash--indeed,
these appurtenances were rarely off us--and putting my tattered
uniform in such order as the somewhat limited means of my "toilet-
table" admitted, repaired at once, and not without considerable
surprise, and some vague misgivings, to the house inhabited by Lord
Raglan. I had there to wait for some time, as he was busy with some
of the headquarter staff, and had just been holding a conference with
certain French officers of rank, who were accompanied by their aides
and orderlies. Among them I saw the fat and full-faced but soldier-
like Marshal Pelissier, the future Duc de Malakoff, with his cavalry
escort and banner; and grouped about the place, or departing
therefrom, I saw Chasseurs d'Afrique in sky-blue jackets and scarlet
trousers; Imperial Cuirassiers in helmets and corslets of glittering
steel; French horse artillery with caps of fur and pelisses covered with
red braid. There, too, were many of our own staff officers, with their
plumed hats; even the Turkish cavalry escort of some pasha, stolid-
looking fellows in scarlet fezzes, were there, their unslung carbines
resting on the right thigh; and I saw some of our Land Transport
Corps, in red jackets braided with black, loitering about, as if some
important movement was on the tapis; but whatever had been
suggested, nothing was fated to come of it.

Through the buzz and Babel of several languages, I was ushered

at last, by an orderly sergeant, into the little dingy room where the
Commander-in-chief of our Eastern army usually held his councils or
consultations, received reports, and prepared his plans. The military
secretary, the chief of the staff, the adjutant-general, and some other
officers, whose uniforms were all threadbare, darned, and
discoloured, and whose epaulettes were tattered, frayed, and reduced
almost to black wire, were seated with him at a table, which was
littered with letters, reports, despatches, telegrams, and plans of
Sebastopol, with the zigzags, the harbour, the valley of the
Tchernaya, and of the whole Crimea. And it was not without an
emotion of interest and pleasure, that I found myself before our old
and amiable leader, the one-armed Lord Raglan--he whose kindly
nature, charity, urbanity, and queer signature as Fitzroy Somerset,
when military secretary, had been so long known in our army during
the days of peace; and to whom the widow or the orphan of a soldier
never appealed in vain.

"Glad to see you, Captain Hardinge," said he, bowing in answer to

my salute; "I have a little piece of duty for you to perform, and the
chief of the staff" (here he turned to the future hero of the attack on
the Redan) "has kindly reminded me of how well you managed the
affair of the flag of truce sent to the officer on the Russian left,
concerning the major of the 93rd Highlanders."

I bowed again and waited.

"My personal aides," he continued, "are all knocked up or engaged

elsewhere just now, and I have here a despatch for Marshal
Canrobert, requiring an immediate answer, as there is said to be an
insurrection among the Polish troops within Sebastopol, and if so, you
will readily perceive the necessity for taking instant advantage of it.
At this precise time, the Marshal is at a Tartar village on the road to
Kokoz." (Here his lordship pointed to a map of the Crimea.) "It lies
beyond the Pass of Baidar, which you will perceive indicated there,
and consequently is about thirty English miles to our rear and right.
You can neither miss him nor the village, I think, by any possibility, as
it is occupied by his own old corps, the 3rd Zouaves, a French line
regiment, and four field guns. You will deliver to him this letter, and
bring me his answer without delay."

"Unless I fail, my lord."

"As Richelieu says in the play, 'there is no such word as fail!'" he

replied, smiling. "But, however, in case of danger, for there are
Cossacks about, you must take heed to destroy the despatch."

"Very good, my lord--I shall go with pleasure."

 "You have a horse, I presume?"

"I had not thought of that, my lord--a horse, no; here I can
scarcely feed myself, and find no use for a horse."

"Take mine--I have a spare one," said the chief of the staff, who
was then a major-general and C.B. He rang the hand-bell for the
orderly sergeant, to whom he gave a message. Then I had a glass or
two of sherry from a simple black bottle; Lord Raglan gave me his
missive sealed, and shook my hand with that energy peculiar to the
one-armed, and a few minutes more saw me mounted on a fine black
horse, belonging to the chief of the staff, and departing on my lonely
mission. The animal I rode--round in the barrel, high in the forehead,
and deep in the chest, sound on its feet and light in hand--was a
thorough English roadster--a nag more difficult to find in perfection
than even the hunter or racer; but his owner was fated to see him no
more.

I rode over to the lines of the regiment, to let some of our fellows-
-who all envied me, yet wished me well--know of the duty assigned
me. What was it to me whether or not she saw my name in
despatches, in orders, or in the death list? Whether I distinguished
myself or died mattered little to me, and less now to her. It was a
bitter conviction; so excitement and forgetfulness alike of the past
and of the present were all I sought--all I cared for. Caradoc,
however, wisely and kindly suggested some alteration or modification
in my uniform, as the country through which I had to pass was
certainly liable to sudden raids by scouting Cossacks. So, for my red
coat and bearskin, I hastily substituted the blue undress surtout,
forage cap, and gray greatcoat. I had my sword, revolver, and
ammunition pouch at my waist-belt. Perceiving that I was gloomy and
sullen, and somewhat low-spirited in eye and bearing, Caradoc and
Charley Gwynne, who could not comprehend what had "been up"
with me for some time past, and who openly assured me that they
envied me this chance of "honourable mention," accompanied me a
little way beyond the line of sentries on our right flank.
 "Au revoir, old fellow! Keep up your heart and remember all I have
said to you," were Phil's parting words, "and together we shall sing
and be merry. I hope to keep the 1st of March in Sebastopol, and
there to chorus our old mess room song;" and as he waved his hand
to me, the light-hearted fellow sang a verse of a ditty we were wont
to indulge in on St. David's-day, while Toby Purcell's spurs were laid
on the table, and the band, preceded by the goat led by the drum-
major with a salver of leeks, marched in procession round it:

Then pledge me a toast to the glory of Wales--

To her sons and her daughters, her hills and her vales;
Once more--here's a toast to the mighty of old--
To the fair and the gentle, the wise and the bold;
Here's a health to whoever, by land or by sea,
Has been true to the Wales of the brave and the free!"

And poor Phil Caradoc's voice, carolling this local ditty, was the last
sound I heard, as I took the path that led first towards Balaclava and
thence to the place of my destination, while the sun of the last day of
November was shedding lurid and farewell gleams on the spires and
white walls of Sebastopol. Many descriptions have rendered the name
and features of Balaclava so familiar to all, with its old Genoese fort,
its white Arnaout dwellings shaded by poplars and other trees, that I
mean to skip farther notice of it, and also of the mud and misery of
the place itself--the beautiful and landlocked harbour, once so
secluded, then crowded with man-of-war boats and steam launches,
and made horrible by the swollen and sweltering carcasses of
hundreds of troop-horses, which our seamen and marines used as
stepping-stones when leaping from boat to boat or to the shore.
Some little episodes made an impression upon me, which I am
unlikely to forget, after approaching Balaclava by a cleft between
those rocky heights where our cavalry were encamped, and where,
by ignominiously making draught-horses of their troopers for the
conveyance of planks, they were busily erecting a town of huts that
looked like a "backwood" hamlet. A picturesque group was formed by
some of the kilted Highland Brigade, brawny and bearded men, their
muscular limbs displayed by their singular costume, piling a cairn
above the trench where some of their dead comrades lay, thus
fulfilling one of the oldest customs of their country--in the words of
Ossian, "raising the stones above the mighty, that they might speak
to the little sons of future years." Elsewhere I saw two Frenchmen
carrying a corpse on a stretcher, from which they coolly tilted it into a
freshly dug hole, and began to cover it up, singing the while as
cheerily as the grave-digger in Hamlet, which I deemed a striking
proof of the demoralising effect of war--for their comrade was literally
buried exactly as a dog would have been in England; and yet, that
the last element of civilisation might not be wanting, a gang of
"navvies" were laying down the sleepers for the first portion of the
camp-railway, through the main street of Balaclava, the Bella-chiare
of the adventurous Genoese.

Though I did not loiter there, the narrow way was so deep with
mud, and so encumbered by the débris and material of war, that my
progress was very slow, and darkness was closing in on land and sea
when I wheeled off to the left in the direction of Kokoz, after
obtaining some brandy from a vivandière of the 12th French Infantry-
-not the pretty girl with the semi-uniform, the saucy smile, and
slender ankles, who beats the drum and pirouettes so prettily as the
orthodox stage vivandière--but a stout French female party, muffled
in a bloodstained Russian greatcoat, with a tawny imp squalling at
her back. I passed the ground whereon the picturesque Sardinian
army was afterwards to encamp, and soon entered the lovely Baidar
valley. The mountains and the dense forests made me think of Wales,
for on my right lay a deep ravine with rocks and water that reflected
the stars; on my left were abrupt but well-wooded crags, and I could
not but look first on one side, and then on the other, with some
uneasiness; for Russian riflemen might be lurking among the latter,
and stray Cossacks might come prowling down the former, far in rear
of Canrobert's advanced post at the Tartar village. A column such as
he had with him might penetrate with ease to a distance most
perilous for a single horseman; and this valley, lovely though it was--
the Tempe of the Crimea--I was particularly anxious to leave behind
me. I have said that I felt reckless of peril, and so I did, being
reckless enough and ready enough to face any danger in front; yet I
disliked the idea of being quietly "potted" by some Muscovite boor
lying en perdue, behind a bush, and then being brained or bayoneted
by him afterwards; for I knew well that those who were capable of
murdering our helpless wounded on the field, would have few
compunctions elsewhere. Reflection now brought another idea--a
very unpleasant one--to mind. Though I was in rear of this French
advanced post, there was nothing to prevent Cossack scouts--active
and ubiquitous as the Uhlans of Prussia--from deeming me a spy and
treating me as such, if they found me there; for was not Major André
executed most ignominiously by the Americans on that very charge,
though taken in the uniform of the Cameronian regiment?

Unfortunately for me, there were and are two roads through the
Baidar valley: one by the pass, of recent construction; and the other,
the ancient horse-road, which is old, perhaps, as the days of the
Greeks of Klimatum. A zigzag ascent, and a gallery hewn through the
granite rocks for some fifty yards or so, lead to a road from whence,
by its lofty position, the whole line of shore can be seen for miles,
and the sea, as I saw it then, dotted by the red top-lights of our men-
o'-war and transports. The other follows for some little distance,
certainly, the same route nearly, but comes ere long to the Devil's
Staircase, the steps of which are trunks of trees alternated by others
hewn out of the solid rock; and this perilous path lies, for some part
of the way at least, between dark, shadowy, and enormous masses of
impending cliffs, where any number of men might be taken by
surprise. And certainly I felt my heart beat faster, with the mingled
emotions of fierce excitement and stern joy, as I hooked my sword-
hilt close up to my waist-belt, assured myself that the caps were on
my revolver, and spurred my roadster forward. Darkness was
completely set in now, and before me there twinkled one solitary star
at the distant end of the gloomy and rocky tunnel through which I
was pursuing my solitary way.
 CHAPTER XLI.--THE CARAVANSERAI.

I pursued the old road just described, urging my horse to a trot

where I dare do so, but often being compelled--by the rough
construction and nature of the way, and at times by my painful
doubts as to whether I was pursuing the right one--to moderate his
pace to a walk. Frequently, too, I had to dismount and lead him by
the bridle, especially at such parts as those steps of wood and stone
by the Merdven or Devil's Staircase, when after passing through
forests of beech and elm, walnut and filbert trees, I found myself on
the summit of a rock, which I have since learned is two thousand feet
above the Euxine, and from whence the snow-capped summits of the
Caucasus can be seen when the weather is clear. Around me were the
mountains of Yaila, rising in peaks and cliffs of every imaginable form,
and fragments of rock like inverted stalactites started up here and
there amidst the star-lighted scenery. Anon the way lay through a
forest entirely of oaks, where the fallen leaves of the past year lay
deep, and the heavy odour of their decay filled all the atmosphere.
The country seemed very lonely; no shepherd's cot appeared in sight,
and an intense conviction of utter solitude oppressed me. Frequently
I reined in my horse and hearkened for a sound, but in vain. I knew a
smattering of Arabic and that polyglot gibberish which we call
Hindostani, but feared that neither would be of much service to me if
I met a Tartar; and as for a Greek or Cossack, the revolver would be
the only means of conferring with them. Once the sound of a distant
bell struck my ear, announcing some service by night in a church or
monastery among the hills; and soon, on my left, towered up the
range of which Mangoup-Kaleh is the chief, crowned with the ruins of
a deserted Karaite or Jewish tower, and which overlooks Sebastopol
on one side, and Sebastopol on the other. After a time I came to a
place where some buffaloes were grazing, beside a fountain that
plashed from a little archway into a basin of stone. This betokened
that some habitation must be in the vicinity; but that which perplexed
me most, was the circumstance that there the old road was crossed
by another: thus I was at a loss which to pursue. One might lead me
to the shore of the Black Sea; another back towards Sebastopol, or to
the Russian pickets in the valley of Inkermann; and the third, if it
failed to be the way to Kokoz, might be a path to greater perils still.

While in this state of doubt, a light, hitherto unnoticed, attracted

my attention. It glimmered among some trees about a mile distant on
my left, and I rode warily towards it, prepared to fight or fly, as the
event might require. Other lights rapidly appeared, and a few minutes
more brought me before a long rambling building of Turkish aspect,
having large windows filled in with glass, a tiled roof, and broad
eaves. On one side was a spacious yard enclosed by a low wall,
wherein were several horses, oxen, and buffaloes tethered to the
kabitkas or quaintly-constructed country carts; on the other was a
kind of open shed like a penfold, where lighted lanterns were hanging
and candles burning in tin sconces; and by these I could perceive a
number of bearded Armenians and Tartars seated with chibouks and
coffee before them, chatting gaily and laughing merrily at the
somewhat broad and coarse jokes of a Stamboul Hadji, a pretended
holy mendicant, whose person was as unwashed and whose attire
was as meagre and tattered as that of any wandering Faquir I had
ever seen in Hindostan. His beard was ample, and of wonderful
blackness; his glittering eyes, set under beetling brows, were restless
and cunning; his turban had once been green, the sacred colour; and
he carried a staff, a wallet, a sandal-wood rosary of ninety-nine
beads, and a bottle, which probably held water when nothing
stronger could be procured. The Tartars, six in number, were lithe,
active, and gaily-dressed fellows, with large white fur caps, short
jackets of red or blue striped stuff, and loose, baggy, dark blue
trousers, girt by scarlet sashes, wherein were stuck their daggers and
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