"Here," I said to the sergeant as I handed him my little bottle, "I have brought you your drop of cherry-brandy; it was such a cold night, you must need it."
"And you have thought of me, Father Moses!" he exclaimed, taking me by the arm, and looking at me with emotion.
"Yes, sergeant."
"Well, I am glad of it."
He raised the flask to his mouth and took a good drink. At that moment there was a distant cry. "Who goes there?" and the guard of the outpost ran to open the gate.
"That is good!" said the sergeant, tapping on the cork, and giving me the bottle; "take it back, Father Moses, and thank you!"
Then he turned toward the half-moon and asked, "News! What is it?"
We both looked and saw a hussar quartermaster, a withered, gray old man, with quantities of chevrons on his arm, arrive in great haste.
All my life I shall have that man before my eyes; his smoking horse, his flying sabretash, his sword clinking against his boots; his cap and jacket covered with frost; his long, bony, wrinkled face, his pointed nose, long chin, and yellow eyes. I shall always see him riding like the wind, then stopping his rearing horse under the arch in front of us, and calling out to us with a voice like a trumpet: "Where is the governor's house, sergeant?"
"The first house at the right, quartermaster. What is the news?"