"This announcement was received with shouts of laughter, in which I confess I joined, whilst Captain T. still retained an unmoved gravity.
"'It is easier to laugh at such a thing than to believe it, sir,' said he. 'I believe it, because I know it.'
"I smiled, and turned the conversation.
"If anybody at the table except Captain T. had made such an assertion as this, I should have ridiculed them without mercy; but he was an old man, and from the circumstances I have mentioned regarding his origin, we were careful not to offend him; so no more was said about Mungo, and in the hurry of events that followed. I never thought of it again. We marched on to Brussels the next day; and after that, had enough to do till we went to Antwerp, where we were besieged by the French the following year.
"During the siege, I sometimes heard the name of Mungo again; and, one night, when I was visiting the guards and sentries as grand rounds, I caught a glimpse of him, and I felt sure that the man he was approaching when I observed him, had been asleep; but he was screened by an angle of the bastion, and by the time I turned the corner, he was moving about.
"This brought to my mind all I had heard about the dog; and as the circumstance was curious, in any point of view, I mentioned what I had seen to Captain T. the next day, saying, 'I saw your friend Mungo, last night.'
"'Did you, sir?' said he. 'It's a strange thing! No doubt, the man was asleep!'
"'But do you seriously mean to say, that you believe this to be a visionary dog, and not a dog of flesh and blood?'
"'I do, sir; I have been quizzed enough about it; and, once or twice, have nearly got into a quarrel, because people will persist in laughing at what they know nothing about; but as sure as that is a sword you hold in your hand, so sure is that dog a spectre, or ghost—if such a word is applicable to a fourfooted beast!'
"'But, it's impossible!' I said. 'What reason have you for such an extraordinary belief?'