Blueberry had done with that hungry profession for good and all.... And Joshua Horrotian kissed him again, and staggered away to borrow a mattock to dig his grave with.... When he returned with this, narrowly escaping destruction at the hoofs of a frenzied Brocken-hunt of ownerless, starving Cavalry horses, he found that great pieces had been torn from Blueberry’s yet quivering sides by these perishing comrades: and that his mane and tail had been gnawed away....
Perhaps Somewhere Else it was all made up to these blameless four-legged martyrs?... Perhaps Blueberry woke up in radiant meadows beside crystal-clear pools?... Stern theologian, do not shake your head.... You can be sure no more than I can. And there is room enough in Eternity for every soul, be it human or brute.
XCII
Still speaking of the horses, Cardillon ended:
“It sounds brutal to say it, perhaps, but they’re better dead. Even if forage could have been got up to the camps in time to save them, they haven’t a chance—with the Russian winter coming upon them, and no shelter of any kind. Take my word for it, we shall fight no more Cavalry actions on the soil of Crim Tartary—as sure as I’m a Brigadier on my way home to be heckled by a Government Commission of Inquiry for obeying a written order of Her Majesty’s Commander-in-Chief!”
He tugged at his sandy bush of whisker and frowned. Lady Stratclyffe returned mellifluously:
“Granted that the order was an error, scrawled in a moment of perplexity or confusion—the loyal obedience and high discipline of the commanding officers and the men, have turned a blunder into a blaze of glory.”
He took her hand and touched it lightly with his lips:
“Never believe, though, that my fellows cheered as they rode down the Valley under the plunging fire of all those Ruski batteries. They cursed and swore. Jove! how they did just swear!” He chuckled like a schoolboy.
“But they rode on, nevertheless,” said Lady Stratclyffe; “and knowing what they are, I burn with indignation to think how they have been wronged! For it is a grievous wrong, to have cast them out upon an unfriendly foreign shore and denied them their rights of food and fuel and shelter. Without which, I quote your own words in reference to the horses, ‘with the Russian winter coming upon them, they haven’t a chance!’”