"But the captain, the Englishman, what became of him?" I asked, slightly
glancing at the countenance of the narrator.

"Oh, very well off indeed! Foreign Governments are showy to the soldier,
and Joseph the Second, though an economist in civil matters, was liberal
to his successful officers. The captain received a pension; a couple of
orders; was made a colonel on the first opportunity; and, besides, had
his share of the plunder--no slight addition to his finances, for the
military chest had been taken in the baggage of the Seraskier."

"And by this time," said I, with an unenquiring air, "he is doubtless a
field-marshal?"

"Nothing of the kind," replied my reverend friend, "for his victory
cured him of soldiership. He was wounded in the engagement, and if he
had been ever fool enough to think of fame, the solitary hours of his
invalidism put an end to the folly. Other and dearer thoughts recurred
to his mind. He had now obtained something approaching to a competence,
if rightly managed; he asked permission to retire, returned to England,
married the woman he loved; and never for a moment regretted that he was
listening to larks and linnets instead of trumpets and cannon, and
settling the concerns of rustics instead of manoeuvring squadrons and
battalions."

"But what was the ghost, after all?"

"Oh, the mere trick of a juggler! a figure projected on the wall by some
ingenious contrivance of glasses. The instrument was found on the body
of the performer, who turned out to be the colonel's valet--of course in