"About a hundred and twenty of all ranks, killed, wounded, and missing. A piece more of the fowl--thanks."
"A guardsman was killed last night, I have heard," said Hugh Price.
"Yes; poor Evelyn of the Coldstreams; he was first blinded by dust and earth blown into his eyes by the ricochetting of a 36-pound shot, and as he was groping about in an exposed place between the gabions, he fell close by me."
"Wounded?"
"Mortally--hit in the head; he' was just able to whisper some woman's name, and then expired. He purchased all his steps up to the majority, so there's a pot of money gone. I think I could enjoy a quiet weed now; but, Clavell, there was surely an awful shindy in your quarter last night?"
"Yes," replied Tom, who, since he had been under fire, seemed to have grown an inch taller; "a sortie."
"A sortie?" said two or three, laughing.
"Well, something deuced like it," said Tom, testily, as he stroked the place where his moustache was to be. "I was asleep between the gabions about twelve at night, when all at once a terrible uproar awoke me. 'Stand to your arms, men, stand to your arms!' cried our adjutant; 'the Russians are scouring the trenches!' I sprang up, and tumbled against a bulky brute in a spike-helmet and long coat, with a smoking revolver in his hand, just as a sergeant of ours shot him. It was all confusion--I can tell you nothing about it; but we will see it all in the Times by and by. 'Sound for the reserves!' cried one. 'By God, they have taken the second parallel!' cried another. 'Fire!' 'Don't fire yet!' But our recruits began to blaze away at random. The Russians, however, fell back; it might have been only a reconnoitring party; but, anyhow, they have levanted with the major of the 93rd Highlanders."
"The deuce they have!" we exclaimed. And this episode of the major's capture was to have more interest for me than I could then foresee.
"These cigars, five in number," continued Tom, "were given to me by a poor dying Zouave, who had lost his way and fallen among us. I gave him a mouthful of brandy from my canteen, after which he said, Take these, monsieur l'officier; they are all I have in the world now, and, as you smoke them, think of poor Paul Ferrière of the 3rd Zouaves, once a jolly student of the Ecole de Médecine, dying now, like a beggar's dog!' he added, bitterly. 'Nay,' said I, 'like a brave soldier.' 'Monsieur is right,' said he, with a smile. Our surgeons could do nothing for him, and so he expired quite easily, while watching his own blood gradually filling up a hole in the earth near him!"