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They were men remarkable for their lightness of weight and energy. Their duty demanded the most consummate vigilance and agility. Many among their number were skilful guides, scouts, and couriers, and had passed eventful lives on the Great Plains and in the Rocky Mountains. They possessed strong wills and a determination that nothing in the ordinary event could balk.
King Hugh Capet, having received that same evening couriers from the inhabitants of Chartres, informing him that they were hard pressed by the besiegers, resolved to hasten with Ogier to their relief. Ogier terminated this affair as expeditiously as he had so often done others.
They had come the lower trail by way of Standard Peak, where they had a signal station and guard now, where they left mail and rations for them, and then pushed on over into the valley. The Almy couriers took the short cut.
He did not need his glasses, now. He might see them slinging their rifles and poising their lances. It was to be lance work; they did not wish to alarm the wagon train with gun-shots. One hundred yards! Half a minute more and they would be rounding the point where the ravine bordered the hill slope, and would be upon the two couriers. Ninety yards "Ready, general!" "All right. When you say."
Now revolver, holster, "thimble belt" of cartridges all were gone. The couriers were made to tell their tale while the doctor and his assistants were getting Willett to bed, and Willett, from several conditions, was not easy to soothe and quiet. He had not been sparing of the spiritus frumenti that went with other medical supplies in the ambulance. Archer and the surgeon saw it, and said nothing.
"But I told you, brother, that couriers had arrived from the valley of the Adige, and informed me that the prospects of our cause are very gloomy there. The people are split up into factions, which are engaged in bitter wranglings. "Do not think of that now, Andy. The Lord has helped us hitherto, and He will help us henceforward; for our cause is just, and no enemy is able to stand up against it."
Harris was awake, and in highly nervous condition, and begging that he might be allowed to see and question these couriers, but both doctors, regular and contract, said no, not this night. And so, toward midnight, the couriers were permitted to go to bed. The doubled sentries were cautioned to observe the utmost vigilance.
An eye-witness relates that some boys, completely exhausted by exertion, fell asleep amid all the tumult of the battle of the Nile; and other instances are known of soldiers sleeping amid discharges of artillery, and all the tumult of war. Couriers are known to sleep on horseback, and coachmen on their coaches.
One of them had been named Samuel Peters, and he, doubtless, was the owner of the ring. A humorous expression lurked in the couriers eye as he made his report, and heard Amy exclaim, in a tone of disgust and comical despair, "Samuel Peters! That spoils all the romance and dims the beauty of the diamond.
The Marquis justly observes, that nothing more patriotic was ever projected; and it is mainly owing to this high-spirited nobleman that the great advantage is now enjoyed of performing, in ten or twelve days, the journey to the capital of Turkey, which some years ago could be achieved only by riding the whole way, and occupying, by couriers, two or three weeks.
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