“Eh! what?—what’s the matter?” said I, starting up, rubbing my eyes, and yawning.
“Come, my sub, jump up, jump up! parade! parade! the gun has fired.”
“Why, it’s pitch dark, Tom,” said I, still stretching; “you surely don’t go to parade in the middle of the night?”
Tom assured me it was the proper hour, and that it would soon be light; his bearer ran in at the same moment, open-mouthed, to say the colonel was on horseback and had just ridden past.
This announcement quickened my movements; so I reluctantly jumped out of my warm nest, and, after a miserable cold dabble, dressed myself by the light of a candle, “in the lantern dimly burning,” buckled on my Andrea Ferrara, brushed up my hair, took a peep in the glass, to see how I looked on an average, and then, grande tenue, and arm-in-arm, marched off to parade with my friend.
“The day, you see, is beginning to break,” said he.
“I wish, with all my heart, it would make haste about it,” I returned (“and I think I do see a few ruddy streaks in the east), for this is a heathenish hour, a most Cimmerian gloom to manœuvre in. For my part, I am sure I could not distinguish a rank of soldiers from a brick wall.”
“You will soon become accustomed to it,” answered my commandant, “and find the reasonableness of this and other Indian customs, which now appear singular to you; better to be comfortable in darkness than to grill in broad day.”
“Tom,” said I, “you must tell me where I am to stand, and what I am to do, for I know no more than the man in the moon.”
“You’ll have merely to march in the rear of the company,” said my commander; “keep step, and salute in passing in review; all that, I think you understand.”