Chapter 11

He shook his head mournfully: "Ach Gott! die werd' ich nie wiedersehen" ("I shall never see them again"). The only thing which he seemed very much to regret was that he should not live long enough to get the cross he had won, so that it might be sent to his father at his little village on the Elbe. Well, the next afternoon we were gathered in the same mournful and hushed way about his bedside. The dying Saxon alone broke the silence. There is no way of reproducing in English the wonderful pathos of his speech, mellow even in its faintness. I suppose I ought to say that his mind was wandering, but at the time it did not seem so to me. He spoke first of the green fields approaching his native village, then of the flowers; and then finally he exclaimed, "There gleams the Elbe, and there comes father!--Father!" And in the joy of that meeting, real or imaginary, a smile parting his lips, he died.

We gave the gentle Saxon the poor honor of a separate grave, and as soon after the siege as I could get a letter out I wrote to his father, sending the few little trinkets that had been trusted to my keeping. In the answer and thanks of the lonely old man--for he was now widowed and childless--there was something almost as sad as the death I have been telling you of. He could not hear enough of his son's last days, and our correspondence ceased only when my minutest details had been given.

I have already told you of our last sortie, and really of our last service as a corps. A few days after the loss of our coffee-pot the armistice was declared. Those were sad times. I can't tell you of the despair of that whole city. It makes me dizzy even to remember it. When the people saw that their endurance, suffering, starvation for those long months had been unavailing, there were no bounds to their speech or acts. The two words, "Treason!" and "Bread!" were heard everywhere. Men wept like children. Many actually lay down and died, half starved, half heartbroken. These things will never be written up--they never can be written up. It needed hope with the scant food so many had lived on. The city at the mercy of the conquerors--But there is no use in trying to recall those wild, miserable days. The air was charged with the common despair. I saw the burning of the Tuileries and all the horrors of the Commune, but nothing ever had such an effect upon me as that.

I must, however, before I draw these reminiscences to a close, tell you about Major O'Flynn, of Her Majesty's Indian army. It was he who brought the pumpkin into camp at Châtillon. That he should have risked his life most recklessly in doing it was nothing odd, as you will soon learn. It was only a little droll that he should have taken just that time and place to gratify his curiosity. He had heard Americans talk a great deal about pumpkin-pies, and he wanted to know if they were as good as their reputation; so he took the first chance and the first pumpkin that came in his way. Major Thomas Vincent O'Flynn, of Her Majesty's Indian army, was of course an Irishman. He was tall, tawny, impassive as any Englishman; modest and mild-mannered in camp, and in the field utterly unconscious of bullets or shell. He had married a Hindoo lady, whom we called the Begum. She was just as excitable as he was impassive. He owned a pair of splendid black horses, which he generally drove himself in one of our wagons. Sometimes, however, he rode, as _estafette_ or orderly, a splendid sorrel stallion, also his property; and this stallion, "Garryowen" by name, was the pride and delight of our hearts, the pet of our camp. The major had a poodle dog too, distinct from the Begum's. It was generosity rather than effeminacy on his part to have this dog, for he bought it to save its life: the former owners were about to eat it when the major came to the rescue. The dog was white, and our Indian warrior used to spend much time washing it on the eve of a fight. The dog would ride stretched across its master's feet on the front of the wagon; and upon the field, if the major was capable of the sense of fear--which-I doubt--it was exercised solely for his horses and dog. When away from these he was always getting to the front. The only provision he made against any possible danger was to fill his pocket with silver five-franc pieces. A man didn't know, he said, when he might be taken prisoner by those "thaves" of Prussians, and he'd better have his money with him till he could get his remittances from across the Channel. He had enough of living upon next to nothing--which was horse-flesh--and he didn't want to live on nothing among the Germans. Those five-franc pieces, however, he always put to the drollest uses. He would find his way in among the artillerymen, and, pointing to a given spot, he would tell them in the worst imaginable French to throw a shell in there: "Ploo haut, ploo haut, mon bong ami: aim at the chimney, the chimney." Then he would step aside, with hands in his pockets, and watch results. If it was a good shot, he would give the gunner a five-franc piece. Thus he would pass along the line until he had exhausted the money with which he had fortified himself against starvation among the Prussians. And this was all for pure love of fighting, for the major saw so much of the French officers' incompetency that he soon had precious little sympathy for their cause.

At the second assault on Bourget, O'Flynn grew tired of waiting for the attack, and, what is more, terribly hungry. "I've lived long enough on horse-mate," exclaimed the major, "especially when I've none of it at all!" So he unhitched one of his black horses from the ambulance-wagon, and, taking a saddle from an orderly, tore off his _brassard_ and other ambulance insignia, threw away his cap, so as not to compromise us, and rode bareheaded down to the very frontest of the front. The advance were lying crouched down in the rifle-pits, awaiting the signal to storm the village. Motioning to the amazed soldiery, he cried, still in his horrible French, "Now or never! _Voilà_ Bourget! Follow me! See, there's Bourget. Sooivez moi!" All this to the rattle of German musketry. Seeing that he got no response in one place, he rode madly to the other rifle-pits and repeated the invitation, the officers shouting to him as he passed that he was riding into certain death, and conjuring him to save himself. But the major could not or would not understand them. Finally, some officers ran out, and, taking him forcibly from his horse, led him away.

The major often went on commissions from our camp on the Avenue de l'Impératrice down into the city. In those days many of the young French swells, to keep from going into the field, had donned the ambulance uniform and passed their time loafing about the cafés in the Boulevards. This became so great a scandal that Trochu was obliged to issue an order forbidding the uniform to be worn except on active duty. One day, as the major, bound on some errand in the interest of a Frenchman lying wounded in our hospital, was majestically riding his superb stallion Garryowen down the Champs Élysées, his long tawny side-whiskers waving gently in the breeze, his wiry frame erect as a ramrod, the blue regulation-coat buttoned close to his throat with American buttons, the International _brassard_ on his arm and the ambulance shield on his cap,--as the major, I say, sailed down in this state, he was hailed by one of the chiefs of the French ambulance, which just then was all powerful in Paris. The major pulled up Garryowen leisurely, and the little Frenchman, who spoke tolerable English, demanded brusquely, "Don't you know General Trochu has forbidden to wear ambulance uniform when off duty? And we want this thing stopped."

The major very deliberately leaned over and caught the little French official by the button of the coat, and in an undertone asked, "And, sure, who are you?"

"I am Mr. So-and-so," mentioning the name of one of the chiefs of the French International corps.

"Oh, ye are, are ye?" rejoined the major, retaining his hold of the little man's button. "Then, Mr. So-and-so, give my compliments--Major O'Flynn's compliments, if ye loike it better--to General Trochu, and tell him, if you plase, that the gentlemen of the American ambulance and meself buy our own clothes and pay for them, ride our own horses and fade them; and when we want or have time to parade aither the one or the other, we will ask permission from the general himself."

Releasing his hold of the Frenchman's button, the major saluted and rode gracefully away upon his errand of mercy. 'And after this specimen of his politeness none of us was ever interfered with.

I have heard from others that the major and the Begum are still alive and thriving. One day in the times of the Commune I had crept up behind the Arc de Triomphe, during a lull in the fire, to take a look at the Communist batteries at Porte Maillot. Now, the major lived halfway between the Arc and the batteries. Suddenly from my concealment I saw the gateway of his house open, and the major sally forth on Garryowen. He gave merely a glance at the batteries, and slowly rode up toward the Arc. There was not a soul else visible on the highway, and it must have been he who drew the attention of the Versaillais, for their guns opened at once and the shells came spinning around in the neighborhood. Garryowen, the grand, the beautiful, was as accustomed to fire as his rider was: neither was shaken from his equilibrium. With the same easy pace they gradually wound their way up to and around the Arc de Triomphe, and thus calmly down the Champs Élysées. The droll, gallant fellow waved me a graceful good-day as he passed me peeping from behind my hiding-place; and that was my last sight, and a characteristic one, of Major Thomas Vincent O'Flynn, of Her Majesty's Indian army.

RALPH KEELER.

THE HUMMING-BIRD.

Poised in a sheeny mist Of the dust of bloom, Clasped to the poppy's breast and kissed, Baptized in pools of violet perfume From foot to plume!

Zephyr loves thy wings Above all lovable things, And brings them gifts with rapturous murmurings: Thine is the golden reach of blooming hours, Spirit of flowers!

Music follows thee, And, continually, Thy life is changed and sweetened happily, Having no more than rose-leaf shade of gloom, O bird of Bloom!

Thou art a winged thought Of tropical hours, With all the tropic's rare bloom-splendor fraught, Surcharged with Beauty's indefinable powers, Angel of flowers!

JAMES MAURICE THOMPSON.

A PRINCESS OF THULE.

By William Black, Author of "THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A PHAETON."