side, and by thickets on the other. When we were half-way up we met
another regiment of artillery, its colonel marching at the head. This
colonel wanted to make the captain who was at the head of our foremost
battery back down again. The captain, of course, refused; but the
colonel of the other regiment signed to his foremost battery to
advance, and in spite of the care the driver took to keep among the
scrub, the wheel of the first gun struck our captain's right leg and
broke it, throwing him over on the near side of his horse. All this
was the work of a moment. Our Colonel, who was but a little way off,
guessed that there was a quarrel; he galloped up, riding among the
guns at the risk of falling with his horse's four feet in the air, and
reached the spot, face to face with the other colonel, at the very
moment when the captain fell, calling out 'Help!' No, our Italian
colonel was no longer human! Foam like the froth of champagne rose to
his lips; he roared inarticulately like a lion. Incapable of uttering
a word, or even a cry, he made a terrific signal to his antagonist,
pointing to the wood and drawing his sword. The two colonels went
aside. In two seconds we saw our Colonel's opponent stretched on the
ground, his skull split in two. The soldiers of his regiment backed
--yes, by heaven, and pretty quickly too.

"The captain, who had been so nearly crushed, and who lay yelping in
the puddle where the gun carriage had thrown him, had an Italian wife,
a beautiful Sicilian of Messina, who was not indifferent to our
Colonel. This circumstance had aggravated his rage. He was pledged to
protect the husband, bound to defend him as he would have defended the
woman herself.

"Now, in the hovel beyond Zembin, where I was so well received, this
captain was sitting opposite to me, and his wife was at the other end