"De Rohan," he added, "stay here to carry out the orders I have given you. As soon as your friend can be spared from the Bey, bring him over with you, to remain at head-quarters. Salaam!" And the General was on his horse and away long before the Turkish guard could get under arms to pay him the proper compliments, leaving Iskender Bey to return to his brandy-bottle, and my old friend Victor to make himself comfortable in my tent, and smoke a quiet chibouque with me whilst we related all that had passed since we met.
Victor was frank and merry as usual, spoke unreservedly of his liaison with Princess Vocqsal, and the reasons which had decided him on seeing a campaign with the Turkish army against his natural enemies, the Russians.
"I like it, mon cher," said he, puffing at his chibouque, and talking in the mixture of French and English which seemed his natural language, and in which he always affirmed he thought. "There is liberty, there is excitement, there is the chance of distinction; and above all, there are no women. It suits my temperament, mon cher: voyez-vous, je suis philosophe. I like to change my bivouac day by day, to attach myself to my horses, to have no tie but that which binds me to my sabre, no anxieties but for what I shall get to eat. The General does all the thinking--parbleu! he does it à merveille; and I--why, I laugh and I ride away. Fill my chibouque again, and hand me that flask; I think there is a drop left in it. Your health, Vere, mon enfant, and vive la guerre!"
"Vive la guerre!" I repeated; but the words stuck in my throat, for I had already seen something of the miseries brought by war into a peaceful country, and I could not look upon the struggle in which we were engaged with quite as much indifference as my volatile friend.
"And you, Vere," he resumed, after draining the flask, "I heard you were with us weeks ago; but I have been absent from my chief on a reconnaissance, so I never could get an opportunity of beating up your quarters. What on earth brought you out here, my quiet, studious friend?"
I could not have told him the truth to save my life. Any one but him, for I always fancied she looked on him with favouring eyes, so I gave two or three false reasons instead of the real one.
"Oh," I replied, "everything was so changed after my poor father's death, and Alton was so dull, and I had no profession, no object in life, so I thought I might see a little soldiering. When they found I could speak Turkish, or rather when I told them so, they gave me every facility at the War Office; so I got a pair of jack-boots and a revolver, and here I am."
"But Omar will make you something better than an Interpreter," urged Victor. "We must get you over to head-quarters, Vere. Men rise rapidly in these days; next campaign you might have a brigade, and the following one a division. This war will last for years; you are fit for something better than a Tergyman."[#]
[#] An Interpreter.
"I think so too," I replied; "though, truth to tell, when I came out here I was quite satisfied with my present position, and only thirsted for the excitement of action. But this soldiering grows upon one, Victor, does it not? Yet I am loth to leave Iskender too; the old Lion stretched me his paw when I had no friends in Turkey, and I believe I am useful to him. At least I must stay with him now, for we shall be engaged before long, I can tell you that."