The Parson was breathing deep, and his eyes were smouldering.
"The Legion d'Irlande. No other regiment in the world could have got in; and once in, no other regiment in the world but ours could have got em out, though I say it as shouldn't."
Voice and eyes burst into thunder and flame.
"And who led em? Why, my boy-girl friend storming along on an old white Arab, and laughing like the devil. 'Here, they come!' yells the Colonel. 'Prepare for—Cavalree!' I jumped on to the big drum, and had a squint over the men's heads. Lor! I can see the dust of em now—like a mighty great wave sweeping across the desert, and the boy on the white Arab coming along like an earthquake six lengths before the lot. It sent me screaming mad to see em. 'Come on, ye dirty black- a-mouths!' I screeched. 'Irish stew for the rebel brigade!' 'Hullo, Black Cock!' he cried, and I saw him grinning through the dust. 'I'm going to cut your comb.' And he took the old horse by head, and rammed him at us—slap-bang, like riding at a bull-finch; and the whole blanky lot after him."
The Parson was stamping up and down, roaring out his story, his eyes laughing and battle-lusty.
"Such a hell of a hugger-mugger you never saw! They rolled in on us like the sea. Rough and tumble every man for himself—stab somebody— don't matter who!" He paused to pant. "It was the day of my life. The Colonel was down; the Majors were dead; the Captains heaven-knows- where. Our old Raven banner, that we took from their Black Horse at Dettingen was in the dust, the Junior Ensign tumbled up in it all anyhow. 'Got it, Miss B.?' I cried. 'Here!' squeals the poor little chap. 'Heave her up!' Then a horse jumped on him, and put him out of his pain.
"I got the old rag up somehow. 'Round this, men!' I yelled, jumping on the Colonel's dead charger. Get round, ye blanky blanks!' Then I saw this boy-girl chap grinning above me. 'Slash away!' I roared. 'Here's one for yourself!' and I jabbed the staff in his mug. 'No,' says he, as jolly as you like, 'I don't fight with poultry!' And dam-my-soul!— if he don't sneak his hand under the rag and tweak my nose!—this nose!" the Parson squeaked, tapping it—"this nose upon this face! this nose I'm talking to you out o now! And he jumped that wallopin old white out the way he came. 'Come along, children,' says he. 'You've had quite enough for one meal.' And away he goes, laughing like the devil, his blessed pathriots after him."
CHAPTER XXXIII
FIGHTING FITZ
The tempest in the Parson's wrathful blue eyes subsided.