"That is more than I will submit to. My name is Gregory Boksa, nobleman; and, besides, I beg to remind the captain that the Hungarian diet has done away with flogging, even for the common people."
"All right," returned Richard; "when you have received your fifty strokes you may go and appeal to the diet. We are not legislating now."
The order was faithfully executed, poor Gregory bellowing lustily the while, after which he was obliged to return and thank the hussar officer for his lesson.
"Now, then," said Richard, "did the Germans shoot forty-pounders?"
"If you please, sir," replied Boksa humbly, "they didn't even fire a pistol at me."
"Disarm him," was the other's order, "and set him on his horse. Then let him go whither he will. A soldier who is not ashamed to run away deserves to feel the rod on that part of his body which he shows to the enemy."
Stripped of his sword and pistols and pole-axe, and with his whip hung around his neck, poor Boksa was mounted on his piebald nag and ignominiously driven out of camp.
Drawing out his pipe, he looked into the bowl, took off his cap and examined it, and then inspected his tobacco-pouch; after which he replaced his cap, pocketed his pipe, closed his tobacco-pouch, and rode on. Was he hatching some deep scheme of revenge?
He rode back over the very road by which he had that day taken his flight,—straight toward the enemy's camp. Suddenly he was challenged in the darkness:
"Halt! Who goes there?"