Although the cavalry squadrons I was despatched to overtake had quitted Nancy four hours before, I came up with them in less than an hour, and inquiring for the officer in command, rode up to the head of the division. He was a thin, gaunt-looking, stern-featured man, who listened to my message without changing a muscle.
‘A general officer, sir, whose name I don’t know, but who told me to take his own horse and follow you.’
‘Did he tell you to kill the animal, sir?’ said he, pointing to the heaving flanks and shaking tail of the exhausted beast.
‘He bolted with me at first, major, and having cleared the ditch of the boulevard, rode away with me.’
‘Why, it’s Colonel Mahon’s Arab, Aleppo,’ said another officer; ‘what could have persuaded him to mount an orderly on a beast worth ten thousand francs?’
I thought I’d have fainted, as I heard these words; the whole consequences of my act revealed themselves before me, and I saw arrest, trial, sentence, imprisonment, and Heaven knew what afterwards, like a panorama rolling out to my view.
‘Tell the colonel, sir,’ said the major, ‘that I have taken the north road, intending to cross over at Beaumont; that the artillery trains have cut up the Metz road so deeply, cavalry cannot travel; tell him I thank him much for his politeness in forwarding this despatch to me; and tell him, that I regret the rules of active service should prevent my sending back an escort to place yourself under arrest for the manner in which you have ridden--you hear, sir?’
‘Are you certain, sir, that you have my answer correctly?’
I repeated the reply, word for word, as he spoke it.
‘No, sir,’ said he as I concluded; ‘I said for unsoldier-like and cruel treatment to your horse.’
One of his officers whispered something in his ear, and he quietly added--
‘I find that I had not used these words, but I ought to have done so; give the message, therefore, as you heard it at first.’
‘Mahon will shoot him, to a certainty,’ muttered one of the captains.
‘I’d not blame him,’ joined another; ‘that horse saved his life at Quiberon, when he fell in with a patrol; and look at him now!’
The major made a sign for me to retire, and I turned and set ont towards Nancy, with the feelings of a convict on the way to his fate.