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This State, lying on the Eastern spurs of the Apennines, midway between Spoleto and Urbino, was ruled by Giulio Cesare Varano, an old war-dog of seventy years of age, ruthless and bloodthirsty, who owed his throne to his murder of his own brother. He was aided in the government of his tyranny by his four sons, Venanzio, Annibale, Pietro, and Gianmaria.
"Good-by, old war-dog!" growled the colonel, in an Anglo-Saxon effort to disguise emotion. He gripped at the right hand that was stretched out on the ground beside him, but it was lifeless. Risaldar Mahommed Khan, two-medal man and pensionless gentleman-at-large, had gone to turn in his account of how he had remembered the salt which he had eaten.
'What news, my lord, what news? cried the guard. 'Incubu rolls Sorais back, as the wind a cloud, I answered, and was gone. One more effort, gallant horse, and yet more gallant man! So, fall not now, Daylight, and hold thy life in thee for fifteen short minutes more, old Zulu war-dog, and ye shall both live for ever in the annals of the land. On, clattering through the sleeping streets.
"They will do their duty." "Even as we will do ours. And thus will Gaul be delivered," answered my father. "You also will do your duty, old man-eater, old Deber-Trud!" added the brenn, stroking the enormous head of the war-dog, who in spite of his chain, was standing up with his paws on the horse's shoulder. "Soon will come the hour of the quarry, fine bloody quarry, Deber-Trud! Her! Her!
"You old war-dog, what brought you here? Heavens, how you startled me! What good wind brought you?" "Nay! It seems it was an ill wind, sahib!" "What ill wind? I'm glad to see you!" "The breath of rumor, sahib!" "What rumor brought you?" "Where a man's honor lies, there is he, in the hour of danger! Is all well with the Raj, sahib?" "With the Raj? How d'you mean, Risaldar?"
And so, old friend, my heart is hot within me, and I long to hear the old battle-cry again, and, by God's truth! if Sir Nigel unfurls his pennon, here is one who will be right glad to feel the saddle-flaps under his knees." "We have seen good work together, old war-dog," quoth Aylward; "and, by my hilt! we may hope to see more ere we die.
When he had appeared, on his way to the trenches, an hour earlier, the Germans had opened fire on him, merely for their own amusement upon the same merry principle which always led them to shoot at an Ally war-dog. But now they understood his all-important mission; and they strove with their best skill to thwart it. The colonel of the Here-We-Comes drew his breath sharply between his teeth.
In this case, however, he reckoned beyond the resources of even his powerful father-in-law. Kearny, who seems to have been a direct old war-dog, resolved at once to test his authority. This order did not in the least please Frémont. He attempted to open negotiations, but Kearny was in no manner disposed to talk.
I am rough, I know it, and when my blood is warm I know not what to do, but yet wilt thou be sorry when the night swallows me and I am utterly lost in blackness, for in thy heart thou lovest me, my father, Macumazahn the fox, though I be nought but a broken-down Zulu war-dog a chief for whom there is no room in his own kraal, an outcast and a wanderer in strange places: ay, I love thee, Macumazahn, for we have grown grey together, and there is that between us that cannot be seen, and yet is too strong for breaking; and he took his snuff-box, which was made of an old brass cartridge, from the slit in his ear where he always carried it, and handed it to me for me to help myself.
It was a rare thing for the old war-dog to take so much as a glass of wine; he went for months without it; but the instant he began to drink he was moved to do or say something disreputable, and that was the trouble now.
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