en-ta-maboull

Updated: April 30, 2025

There was En-ta-maboull, so nicknamed from his love for that unceremonious slang phrase a Zouave who had the history of a Gil Blas and the talent of a Crichton; the morals of an Abruzzi brigand and the wit of a Falstaff; aquiline-nosed, eagle-eyed, black-skinned as an African, with adventures enough in his life to outvie Munchausen; with a purse always penniless, as the camp sentence runs; who thrust his men through the body as coolly as others kill wasps; who roasted a shepherd over a camp-fire for contumacy in concealing Bedouin where-abouts; yet who would pawn his last shirt at the bazaar to help a comrade in debt, and had once substituted himself for, and received fifty blows on the loins in the stead of his sworn friend, whom he loved with that love of David for Jonathan which, in Caserne life, is readier found than in Club life.

Ouida - Under Two Flags