This good colonel had the hungry lad to supper, offered him the best he
had, opened a bottle of good wine, as I have tried to do for you, and
gave him a cigar from his own case. Might I entreat you to take one
from mine?"
The German again shook his head. His horror of his companion had
increased as he sat watching the lips that smiled and the eyes that
glared.
"The colonel, as I say, was good to my boy. But, unluckily, the
prisoners were moved next day across the Rhine into Ettlingen.
They were not equally fortunate there. The officer who guarded them was
a ruffian and a villain, Captain Baumgarten. He took a pleasure in
humiliating and ill-treating the brave men who had fallen into his
power. That night upon my son answering fiercely back to some taunt of
his, he struck him in the eye, like this!"
The crash of the blow rang through the hall. The German's face fell
forward, his hand up, and blood oozing through his fingers. The count
settled down in his chair once more.
"My boy was disfigured by the blow, and this villain made his appearance
the object of his jeers. By the way, you look a little comical yourself
at the present moment, captain, and your colonel would certainly say
that you had been getting into mischief. To continue, however, my boy's
youth and his destitution--for his pockets were empty--moved the pity of
a kind-hearted major, and he advanced him ten Napoleons from his own
pocket without security of any kind.
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