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"Lancey," said Ali Bobo, while the operation was being performed, "zat big Bulgar beast he say you's his friend." "Big he is, a beast he's not, and a friend he was," replied Lancey, with a dazed look. Further conversation was cut short by the sergeant ordering the trio to move on. He led them towards the Russian lines by a cord passed round Bobo's neck, and carried a revolver in his right hand.
Mun Bun and Margy scarcely knew that they were saved until Bobo thrust his cold, wet muzzle into first one face and then the other of the two little Bunkers. They had become so used to Aunt Jo's great Dane doing that that Bobo's affectionate act did not alarm them. "The goosey-goosey-gander's gone, Margy!" stammered Mun Bun. "I told you I wouldn't let him bite you."
Twice, during that night, did Lancey start with a view to get away from that spot, and twice did he find himself, after two hours' wandering, at the side of Ali Bobo's grave. A third time he set out, and at the end of that effort he not only came back to the same spot, but chanced, inadvertently, to plant his foot over the stomach of the luckless Turk. This was too much, even for a dead man.
It was the latter which had brought him to the ground, but the shoulder-wound seemed to be the more dangerous. "Dead!" said Lancey solemnly, as he kneeled beside the body. Eskiwin made no answer, his grave countenance expressed nothing but stern decision. His friend's face was colourless, motionless, and growing cold. He raised Bobo's hand and let it drop as he gazed mournfully into his face.
Next morning he found his detachment, and introduced himself to his friend Eskiwin, whose astonishment, I need scarcely say, was great, but his joy was greater. Ali Bobo's wounds turned out after all to be slight, and were not permitted by him to interfere long with his service in the field.
"Mercy me, ain't that nice quite toney. I hope he'll win if Mister Bobo's horse don't." "Nal," whispered Mandy, "you've not been betting against Comet, have you?" "That's what I have, Mandy. I've got my hull stack o' chips on this yere half-mile dash." "But, Nal, Comet will win sure. Grandfather's crazy about the colt. He says he can't lose no-way." "That's all right," said Nal.
They had had many a tilt before, for the gander believed that everything that came near his flock meant mischief. Bobo's red eyes expanded and the ruff on the back of his neck began to rise. He uttered a low, reverberating bark. It was almost a growl and it sounded threatening. He dashed down the hill with great leaps. Mun Bun finally pitched over on his face, dragging Margy with him.
The good kitchen-maid said little, for she feared lest some misadventure overtake the poor simpleton; but when the chief cook was not looking, she tucked a fresh currant-bun into Bobo's pocket, and wished him the best of good fortune. So Bobo went to the castle gate, and mounted his horse, which stumbled and was blind in one eye.
As it was clear that the angry little man was in earnest, his friend Eskiwin vowed he would go with him, and the big comrade agreed to regard the deed as a sufficient proof of Ali Bobo's strength and prowess if a Russian should be brought in by the two of them. Bobo would have preferred to go alone, but Eskiwin would take no denial.
On Bobo's answering "No," this dreadful person uttered so perfectly awful a screech of rage, that Bobo's horse took fright and ran away with him, and it was all that Bobo could do to rein him in three miles farther down the road. Still farther along, Bobo came to Zizz, the capital city of the Kingdom of the Seven Brooks, and was taken before the King himself. "A lost half-hour?" said the King.
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