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Updated: June 23, 2025
I said to the boy, and turned away from the spot. Wounded men lay around, dragoons and Mexicans, and some were already dead. A party of officers was at the moment returning from the pursuit, and I recognised my late adversary, with our seconds and surgeons. My friend Clayley had been wounded in the melee, and I observed that he carried his arm in a sling. A dragoon officer galloped up.
All I knew was that they had gone up the country perhaps to Cordova or Orizava. Clayley shared my feelings. The bright eyes in the balconies, the sweet voices in the orange-shaded patios of Jalapa, had neither brightness nor music for us. We were both thoroughly miserable.
I felt, and so did my friend Clayley, like a schoolboy who had come too late for his lesson, and would gladly have been the bearer of a present to his master: moreover, we had learned from our comrades that it was the expressed intention of the commander-in-chief to capture as many of the enemy as possible on this occasion.
I was about moving from the spot, when the thought occurred to me to send the company to camp under command of Oakes, and take Clayley along with me. "Clayley, by the way," said I, calling the lieutenant back, "I don't see why you may not carry your compliments in person. Oakes can take the men back. I shall borrow half a dozen dragoons from Rawley." "With all my heart!" replied Clayley.
I had made up my mind to take the opposite road the "back track". I was now in command of a force my own and I felt keenly the necessity of doing something to redeem my late folly. Clayley was as anxious as myself. "You do not need them any longer?" said I to Ripley, a gallant young fellow, who commanded the howitzer. "No, Captain; I have thirty artillerists here.
But I'd have no objecshun if yer honner wud make it mucho bettero. Couldn't ye just take a little turn aff me wrist here? it cuts like a rayzyer." I could not restrain myself from laughing, in which Clayley and Raoul joined me; and we formed a chorus that seemed to astonish our captors. Lincoln alone preserved his sullenness. He had not spoken a word.
Not thinking of the furniture, I looked around the room strangely bewildered. "Ha! Ha! what perplexes you, Captain?" asked Clayley. "Nothing." "Ah! the girls you spoke of the nymphs of the pond; but where the deuce are they?" "Ay, where?" I asked, with a strange sense of uneasiness. "Girls! what girls?" inquired the major, who had not yet learned the exact nature of our aquatic adventure.
Lincoln, brushing past, whispered in my ear, "Cap'n, I understan' these hyur critters better'n you kin. Yer must mix among 'em mix and licker thet's the idee." "Good advice," said Clayley; "but if you could only take the shine out of that fellow at fencing, the thing's done at once. By Jove! I think you might do it, Haller!" "I have made up my mind to try, at all events."
His eye now fell upon the rifle, and, all at once seeming to recollect himself, he staggered towards it and picked it up. Then, as if by instinct, he passed his hand into his pouch and coolly commenced loading. While Raoul was busy with Clayley and the Irishman, I had risen to my feet and looked back over the prairie. The rain was falling in torrents, and the lightning still flashed at intervals.
Scouts were seen galloping off in the direction taken by Raoul, and others dashed into the woods on the opposite side of the prairie. All was hurry and scurry. Along with Clayley I had climbed upon the roof of the rancho, to watch the motions of the enemy, and to find out, if possible, his intentions. We stood for some time without speaking, both of us gazing at the manoeuvres of the guerilleros.
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