"I did not know it was you who ran the risk of being trampled under the hoofs of those horses like a dog! A stupid sort of a death for a brave soldier like you, Schanvoch! But when I heard that devil of a driver crying: 'Save yourself!' I surmised he was about to kill somebody and I tried to hold the cart back. Fortunately my mother endowed me with a good pair of wrists. But where is my dear friend Eustace?" added the captain looking around.
"Whom do you refer to?"
"To a brave fellow, the old companion of my blacksmith days. Like me, he left the hammer for the lance. The fortune of war served me better than it did him. Despite his bravery, my friend Eustace has remained a simple horseman, while I have been promoted to captain. But there he is, yonder, with his arms crossed, and motionless as a signpost. Ho! Eustace! Eustace!"
At the call, the companion of Captain Marion approached slowly, with his arms crossed over his breast. He was a man of middle size and vigorous frame. His pale blonde hair and beard, his bilious complexion, his harsh and sullen physiognomy offered a striking contrast to the pleasant exterior of the captain. I asked myself what singular affinity could draw two men of such different appearance, and doubtless also such dissimilar characters, into close and constant friendship.
"How is that, friend Eustace," the captain jokingly remarked to him, "you remain yonder looking at me with crossed arms, while I am engaged in holding back a runaway team?"
"You are strong," Eustace answered; "what aid can the flesh-worm bring to the bull?"
"That man is certainly consumed with jealousy and hatred," I thought to myself at hearing the answer and observing the sullen looks of the captain's friend.
"There is no flesh-worm nor bull in the case, my friend Eustace," answered the captain with his habitual joviality and looking rather flattered by the comparison; "but when the flesh-worm and the bull are comrades, then, however strong the latter may be, or small the former, the one does not forsake the other—union makes strength, says the proverb."
"Captain," answered the soldier with a bitter smile, "did I ever forsake you in the hour of danger? Have I not always fought at your side, since we left the forge together?"
"I bear witness to the truth of that," cried Marion cordially, taking Eustace by the hand. "As true as the sword you carry is the last weapon I forged in order to give you a token of friendship, as it is engraved on the blade, you have ever in battle 'marched in my shadow,' as the saying goes in my country."