The Austrians were close upon us. There was barely time even to set him free; and what then?
Was I to die because the man I hated asked an impossible thing?
It was monstrous; it was out of all reason. I would push on and save my own life. Count Beula had no claim on me.
The struggle was keen and full of bitter anguish, but it was over in a second; the next I had slipped to the ground and was tugging at the fallen man.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE END OF COUNT BEULA.
You who have read my story know that from the very beginning I disliked this Count Beula; and the death of my gallant brother, which rightly or wrongly I laid at his door, changed my dislike into downright hatred.
Yet throughout this narrative I have, I trust, never shown myself unfair to him. I have told freely how Bern, himself the most reckless of fighters, had praised his courage, and in my account of the storming of Buda I made no attempt to hide his gallantry. Even in this last fight I have mentioned how bravely he rode at the Austrian hussars, and how the glow of health had returned to his cheeks as he bared his weapon for the fray.
No, I am fully persuaded in my own mind that Count Beula did not fear death, but only the manner of it.
Leading or repelling a desperate charge, cheering his men to the deadly breach, or hurling the enemy from the ramparts of an assaulted town, he would have met death cheerfully and without flinching.