It was the night before the battle of Szolnok.
"Singular!" muttered the General, as he paced up and down his tent; "my spirits were wont to rise before a battle, and now I feel as anxious as if the thought of to-morrow were unwelcome!" And he strove to solve in his own mind the cause of such unusual gloom.
Some time after, an officier de corps remarked within the General's hearing, that to-morrow they should have the famous harangue.
"The tartar take it!" exclaimed the General; "it was that made me feel as if I could creep out of my skin. But never fear—they shall have it, and the enemy shall pay for it!"
The General had finished his plans of battle in a quarter of an hour;—the speech was not ready late in the morning.
Having arranged his troops in order, he rode out before them. They all knew that he was to harangue them that day, and they knew that it was as great a sacrifice on his part as if he were to deliver up his battery to a parliamentary tribunal for half a day.
Halting before the standard of the ninth battalion, he lifted his csako, grew very pale, and began:—
"Comrades!"
At that instant, the guns thundered across the Theiss.