The foreigner shook his head, and smiled pleasantly, as he articulated with difficulty that he scarcely knew a word of English; whereupon Jack turned his remarks into very choice Spanish.
Again the stranger smiled and bowed, showing under his close and thick mustache that he had a set of teeth our brightest belles might envy, as he said in the language of our allies,--
"I beg your pardon, sir, but I speak only French with my native language; and it maybe a little--Russ."
"Russ--indeed!" said I, with fresh interest; "are you a Cossack?"
"No," said he, with a sudden air of haughty reserve, "do I look like one?"
"I cannot say," said Jack, "as I never saw one."
He was about to withdraw, as if our notice was displeasing to him, when it chanced that a puff of wind opened my cloak, and below it he perceived the scarlet shell jacket, which was the undress of "Ours." Then his bold dark eye lighted up with new animation, and raising his forage cap, he said, smilingly, in French, which he spoke with great fluency and a good accent,--
"Officers, I perceive, and, better than all, British officers! Would that I had known this sooner, we might have had a pleasant evening together; but now our voyage is nearly half over, as the captain has just told me. I am so glad to meet you, gentlemen, for I, too, have had the honour to wear a sword."
"You are surprised," he said, with a sigh.
"It was the result of fate, or rather the fortune of war, that placed me in their ranks. I was taken in battle, and had no alternative but to serve in the imperial cavalry, or drag a chain over the snows of Siberia; and thus I accepted the former, resolving to escape to my own dear mountains on the first opportunity. I am a Circassian, and fought under the heroic Schamyl, though latterly I held the rank of captain in the Tenginski hussars; but tyranny and misfortune drove me from the Russian ranks before a proper opportunity for escape had come; and I have wandered over many lands with no companion save my horse--my dear Zupi," he continued, caressing the Arab, which rubbed its fine head upon his cheek, as if understanding the reference its master had just made; "my beloved Zupi, who has shared with me many a day of peril, and has thrice saved my life from Russian bullets and from drowning; for there is no horse like thee, Zupi, between the Kuban and the Caspian Sea."