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He merely replied that she was paying him a greater compliment than he deserved. "There are many things I want to speak about, Mr. Schmidt, and and you know how impossible it is to to get a moment to one's self when one is being watched like a child, as I am being watched over by dear Mrs. Gaston. She is my shield and armour, my lovely one-headed dragon.
All the stone implements that were formerly in use have been rendered obsolete by the introduction of iron, and it is now difficult to procure any of these old reminders of the past. The Polarites have but two musical instruments, the "ahtooktoora," or one-string fiddle, and the "calown," or one-headed drum.
This was the first word uttered loud enough to reach the strange four-armed, one-headed, but legless spectre. It produced a wonderful effect, for the odd figure wheeled about and started off at something like a run. Sukey brought his gun to his shoulder and fired. The report of the gun was the signal for the riflemen under Lieutenant Willard to charge, and all gave chase to the spectre.
No matter whether he described the carnage of the turning point in a day of battle; an hour beside a wounded soldier in the hospital, talking of home and friends; or one of the chicken-and-pig-foraging expeditions for which the Zouaves have been almost as famous as for their fighting, through all these shone the spirit of the gay, rattling, contented soldier, who might have sat for a portrait, any day, of Paddy Murphy, in the "Happy Man," making his baggage-wagon, commissariat and camp-chest of a one-headed drum, ready to fall in love with the first neat pair of ankles that peeped from beneath a well-kept petticoat, a little regardless of any proprietorship in the same ankles, other than that vested in the actual owner, and splendidly indifferent as to either the time or the mode of his death, whenever that death should become a matter of necessity.
To the uninitiated, it would seem a dreary sight, yet the people have their enjoyment in the shape of an occasional dance, a most innocent form of amusement, being as much singing as dancing, accompanied by the beating of the one-headed drum. The dancer stands up and makes a few graceful movements with the arms, as well as limbering at the knee joints, then sits down.
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