Page:Edward Prime-Stevenson - The Intersexes.djvu/227

 "Did you know that I am off to-morrow, with tho battalion, Mondino?" And seeing that I did not understand, he added—"Off for the Crimea".

People had been talking about the Crimean War for some time, but somehow it had never occurred to me that he might be ordered there. I could not find my voice. He smiled at my emotion, bis eyes full of compassion, then tried to console me by saying—"I've good hopes of escaping the Russians. They won't want to kill us all. And if I get off, it's quite likely that I shall come back here. Courage, Mondino! We shall meet again some day".

I could not keep back my tears. He looked at me for a little time—earnestly, gravely,—then turned and ran away, as though he had heard the sudden call of one of his superior officers. I went home sad at heart, and had hardly crossed the threshold when I told my mother the mournful tidings, broken by a sob, "Corporal Martinotti … is going to the war".

"Poor fellow!" she exclaimed; then added, to console me, that I would better go and wave him a farewell at the station.

Next evening I rushed to the station; but it was empty. The battalion had left in the morning!

I stood there awhile, gazing with tearful eyes at the shining rails along which my friend had been borne away, following him in my fancy to that far-distant country, full of terror and mystery, from which I did not believe that he would ever return …

What I do remember is that I often thought about my corporal, so far away; and that after bis departure I ceased to have anything to do with the few bersaglieri who still remained, as if he had taken with him all the poetry of his corps and all the enthusiasm of my heart."

The account of how by-and-by Martinotti came back, lively, well and gay, to renew the intimacy with "Mondino" is equally suggestive.

A recent American book entitled "The Spirit of Old West Point", presents the military souvenirs of General Morris Schaff, of the United States army, in a volume remarkable for grace of literary style and sympathie sentiment In its authour's pen-portraits of early friends in the famous Military Academy (the Woolwich, or Saint-Cyr, of the United States) are to