Under Two Flags

rom the Scrubs, with the long line of the First Life stretching before and behind t

let it ooze out, Beauty; y

in the sun for four hours, in full harness, had almos

urbed, pulling down his chin-scale. "Wh

were smashed never did do anything except accept the smashing; unless, indeed

ey do?" pur

a great cigar, without heeding the presence of the Duke,

hook hi

what a fellow might do that was up a tree; and on m

s superb limbs in his saddle till his cuirass and chains and scabbar

t of condition and into a jelly, seems hardly logical or satisfactory-specially to your looking-

nt puff of amazement from his Havana,

ant twist to his mustaches. "Anything's possible. If

gested the Seraph,

n a glove. It's an art, and an art that requires long study. If a few of us were to turn glove-fitters when we are fairly crushed, we might c

hed the Seraph, while his charger thre

marked; all the inaccessible heights colored red, and all the hard-up great people dotted with gold to show the amount they'd be bought for-with directions to the ignoramuses whom to know, court, and avoid. We might form a Courier Company, and take Brummagem abroad under our guidance, so that the Continent shouldn't think Englishwomen always wear blue veils and gray shawls, and hear every Englishman shout for porter and beefsteak in Tortoni's. We might teach them to take their hats off to women, and not to prod pictures with sticks, and to look at statutes without poki

the sun!" laughed the Seraph. "For

st threw ourselves into it a little. I don't mean you, because you'll never smash, and one don't turn bear-leader, even to the B. P

hat's

perior region still. And when a snob came to poison the air, how exquisitely one could annihilate him with showing him his ignorance of claret; and when an epicure dined, how delightfully, as one carried in a turbot, one could tes

ughed till he almost swayed out of saddle, but he shook himself into his balance again with another clash of his

ldn't go to Grand Hotels; but I'll

e's t

-out in Algeria, there, or with the Poles, or after Garibaldi. I would, in a day-I'm

dread that somebody would manage to marry him some day. But Rock had the true dash and true steel of the soldier in him, and his blue eyes fl

easure in his glance, and did not answer aloud. "The deuce-that's not a b

ompted him, when he sent the King at the Grand Military cracker, with that prayer, "Kill me if you like, but don't fail me!"-which, out of the languor and ple

rongest possible folly; but it was there. It always is there with men of Bertie's order, and only comes to light when the match of danger is applied to the touchhole. Then, though "the Tenth don't dance," pe

al practice. Bertie, who had many opportunities, differed with him. He found love-making in his own polished, tranquil circles apt to become a little dull, and was more amused by Laura Lelas

be thrown away on an agricultural husband, who never dreamt that the "Fidelio-III-TstnegeR," which met his eyes in the innocent face of his "Times" referred to an appointment at a

eed, and was a queen of one of the fastest sets; but then-O sacred shield of a wife's virtue-she could not have bor

onds, she and Bertie had the

that Cecil joined her there; that over the Star and Garter repast they arranged their meeting at Baden next month; that while the Baroness dozed over the grapes and peaches-she had been a beauty herself, in her own day, and still had her sympathies-they went on the river, in the little toy that he kept there for his fair frien

u have a beautiful woman beside you who expects you to feel it. The evening was very hot and soft. There was a low south wind, the water made a pleasant murmur, wending among its sedges. She was very lovely, moreover; lying back there among her laces and Indian shawls, with the sunset in the brown depths

deceive himself in his heart about the answer. Nevertheless

e wh

the bad, you know; dropped o

licate shudder through all her laces. "Bertie! Y

ertie philosophically, while his thoughts still ran off

looked at h

remember, last year, driving through Asnieres, when they had found a young man in the Seine; he was very handsome, beautifully dressed, an

nonchalance of his order. "I don't think I should do tha

ris, and went in and sat by the window, taking their coffee, and feeling, in a half-vague pleasure, the heliotrope-scented air blowing softly in from the garden below, and the quiet of the starlit river in the

cil, once more. In that moment he c

ng. They had both seen the Babylonian sun set over the ruins of the Birs Nimrud, and had talked of Paris fashions while they did so; they had both leaned over the terraces of Bellosguardo, while the moon

ated danger by bidding him set her down at a little villa across the park, where dwelt a confidential protegee of hers, whom she patronized; a former French governess, married tolerably well, who had the Countess'

lt to the whole affair. Moreover, there was this ground for it, that had her lord once roused from the straw-yards of his prize cattle, there was a certain stubborn, irrational, old-world prejudice of pride and temper in him that would have made him throw expediency to the winds, then and ther

across the turf. Through the park, with the gleam of the water ever and again shining through the branches of the foliage, Cecil started his horses; his groom he had sent away on reaching Richmond, for the same reason as the Countess had dismissed her barouche, and he wanted no servant, since, as soon as he had set down his liege lady at her protegee's, he would driv

ing in the moonlight, and their scarlet rosettes fluttering in the pleasant air. The eyes beside him, the Titian-like mouth, the rich, delicate cheek, these were, to be sure, rather against the cooln

How absurd you are; as if I could not drive anyth

t as he resigned them to her, Maraschino and his companion quickened their trot, and t

; there is nobody to run ov

the balmy summer's night, while the ring of the hoofs rang merrily on the turf, and the boughs were tossed aside with a dewy fragrance. As they went, the moonlight was shed about their path in the full of the young night, and at the end of a vista of boughs, on a grassy knoll were some phantom forms-the same graceful shapes that sta

ke leave to beg pa

comparing them on

looking wretches t

er seeing these la

one wonders why so

there. A hunting

red them thus by ra

ess herself, to he

d with passionate impatience at his bit; another instant and he had got

nd seized the ribbons that in one instant

th. "He had been always ridden with the Buckhou

e deer

em; no skill, no strength, no science could avail to pull them in; they had taken their bits between their teeth, and the devil that was in Ma

he closeness and the vastness of the peril; there was nothing for it but to trust to chance, to keep his grasp on the reins to the last, and to watch for the first sign of exhaustion. Long ere that should be given death might have come to them both; bu

e "Monarch of the Glens." And the grays were in full pursuit; the hunting fire was in the fresh young horse; he saw the shadowy branches of the antlers toss before him, and he knew no better than to hunt down in their scenting line as hotly as though the field of the Queen's or the Baron'

hrough the shallow rain-pools, shot swift as an arrow across the silver radiance of the broad moonlight, borne against the sweet south wind, and down the odors of the trampled grass, the carriage was hurled across the park in the wild starlight chase. It rocked, it swayed, it shook, at every yard, while it was carried on like a paper toy; as yet the marvelous chances of accident had bo

sting in their vain struggle to recover power over the loosened beasts, the hunting zest

ious!" he cried, half unconsciously. "For God'

ne, he would have flung himself delightedly into the madness of the

gall of the harness. The broken boughs snapped, the earth flew up beneath their hoofs; their feet struck scarlet sparks of fire from the stones, the carriage was whirled, rocking and tottering, through the maze of tree-trunks, towering like pillars of black stone up against the steel-blue clearness of the sky. The strain was intense; the danger dea

-oh, heaven

ugh all obstacles toward its brink. Death was rarely ever closer; one score yards more, one plunge, one crash down the declivity and against the rails, one swell of the noisome tide above their heads, and life would be closed and passed for both of them. For one breathle

he beat of the plunging hoofs shattered like thunder, and the glisten of the flowing water growing nearer and nearer every yard. The tranquillity around only jarred more horribly on ear and brain; the

from them by the slope and the screen of flickering leaves; to save them there was but one chance, and tha

side, clinched the reins hard in the grip of his teeth, measured the distance with an unerring eye, and crouching his body for the spring with all the science of the o

ter. His wrists were wrenched like pulleys, the resistance against him was hard as iron; but as he had risked life and limb in the leap which had seated him across the harnessed loins of the now terrified beast, so he risked them afresh to get the mastery now; to slacken them, turn them ever so slightly, and save the woman he loved-loved, at least in this hour, as he had not loved her before. One moment more, while the half-maddened beast rushed through the shadows; one moment more, till the river stretched full before them in all its length and breadth, without a living thing upon its surface to break the still and awful calm; one m

n as she was flung out on to the yielding fern-grown turf. Fair as she was in every hour, she had ne

love, you

ous; the danger told on her now that it was

with me this evening," she murmured with a shudder. She

ed her t

ere a creature in sight to have witnessed the accident. Trust in me;

onor to leave four hours of his life so buried that, however