He laughed at that, and we parted very good friends.
Mecsey, of course, disliked the arrangement; but, as the only alternative was to leave the Russian to die, he loyally accepted the inevitable.
I left them there on the lonely mountain side, and set off resolutely with my face towards Miskolcz.
Mecsey believed this mountain stream which had so nearly cost us our lives flowed into the Sajo River; if so, I had but to walk along its bank--unless, indeed, it took another subterranean excursion, when it would lose my company.
It proceeded now with a rush and a rattle towards the plain, and its rocky course reminded me of my shoeless feet.
For a staff officer, I was in a pretty plight. My cap, of course, had gone; my feet were bare; I had flung off my attila with my weapons; and I was wringing wet.
The notebook was a mass of pulp, and so entirely useless that I threw it into the stream; but I had previously committed the most important facts to memory, so that its loss mattered little.
Then my thoughts wandered to Mecsey and his companion, and I could not help laughing.
My servant knew not a word of any language save Magyar; his companion, in addition to Russian, could only speak bad German, and I wondered how they would get on.
The ludicrousness of their position kept me merry for a long time; and when the stream, leaving the mountains behind, debouched into an open plain, the journey became much pleasanter.