In the Track of the Troops | Page 8

rocks,
and sunken wrecks; and sometimes, I grieve to say it, they blow up
ships and sailors."
"Dreadful! my dear," said my mother; "nevertheless I should like to go
with you on this excursion, and see what devices men invent for the
purpose of killing each other."
"Very well, that's settled," said I. "Now, as to the other letter about the
yacht. I will buy it, mother, and go on a cruise to the Mediterranean, on
one condition, namely, that you and Nicholas and Bella go with me."

"Impossible!" exclaimed my mother, firmly; "I never could bear the
sea."
"But you've had little experience of it," said I.
"Well, not much--but I cannot bear it."
"Now, mother," said I, coaxingly, "here is Bella dying to go to sea, I
know. Nicholas has loads of time, and cannot be left behind, and I wish
very much to go; but all will fall to the ground if you refuse to
accompany us. We cannot leave you in this house alone. The sea air
will certainly do you good, and if it does not, we can land, you know, at
Lisbon, Gibraltar, Nice,--anywhere, and return home overland."
"Well, then, I will go," returned my pliant mother.
"That's right," said I, sitting down to write. "Now, then, all of you get
ready to go to London this afternoon. We shall spend a day or two there,
because, before leaving, I must see the first Lord of the Admiralty on
particular business. Afterwards we shall run down to Portsmouth by the
afternoon express, spend the night there, and so be ready to face the
torpedoes in the morning."
CHAPTER THREE.
AN INTERVIEW WITH MEN IN POWER.
There is something peculiarly exhilarating in bright sunshine and calm
weather. This is no doubt a truism; but there are some truths of which
one never tires, and in regard to which one feels ever-recurring
freshness. Who ever wearied of a balmy breeze, or a bright sunrise?
Even a glorious noon cannot pall upon us unless it be too hot.
When bright sunshine is associated with good health, pleasant company,
a successful courtship, and the prospect of light on a favourite study,
the reader will understand how it was that my mother and I, with
Nicholas and Bella, formed a peculiarly happy quartette as we
perambulated the streets of London prior to my visit to the Admiralty.

It was a Friday forenoon, and there were many holiday-keepers
hastening to trains. At the corner of one of the main thoroughfares a
crowd partly blocked the road. The cause of it became apparent to us
when the head and arched neck of a black charger appeared, and then
the white plume and polished cuirass of a Life Guardsman. We stood
on a door-step, so that Bella might see the troop.
As they passed before us, with that stately bearing of man and horse
which has always seemed to me peculiar to the Life Guards, and the
sun flashed in dazzling gleams from breasts and helmets, I glanced at
my friend Naranovitsch. His soldierlike form was drawn up to its full
height, while the flashing eye, flushed countenance, distended nostrils,
and compressed but slightly smiling lips told, I thought, of a strong
feeling of martial joy. Doubtless he was thinking at the moment of his
own regiment, to which he had been but recently appointed, and of his
comrades-in-arms.
"Fine-looking fellows!" I whispered.
"Splendid! glorious!" he said, in a deep, low voice.
Bella looked quickly up at him, displaying an anxious, sorrowing face,
and bright eyes, dimmed with ill-suppressed tears.
"You are not ill, Bella?" he whispered, bending down with a look of
tenderness, not unmixed with surprise.
"No; oh, no," she replied, in a low tone; "but the sight of the Guards has
made me very sad."
I knew full well the cause of her emotion, but the crowded street was
not a suitable place for explanation.
"Come, follow me," I said, and walked quickly along in the direction of
the Strand, where I turned abruptly into one of those quiet courts which
form, as it were, harbours of refuge from the rattle and turmoil of the
great city. Here, sauntering slowly round the quiet precincts of the court,
with the roar of the street subdued to a murmur like that of a distant

cataract, Bella told Nicholas, in tones of the deepest pathos, how a
German lady, Elsie Goeben, one of her dearest friends, had been
married to the handsomest and best of men in one of the Prussian
cavalry regiments. How, only six months after their union, the
Franco-Prussian war broke out, and Elsie's husband Wilhelm was sent
with his regiment to the frontier; how in many engagements he had
distinguished himself; and how, at last, he was mortally wounded
during one