102 LODGES IN THE WILDERNESS 



drick was a Hun, — or rather that the tribe he 

 was mainly descended from and the Huns 

 were twigs from the same bough of the great 

 human tree. 



Hendrick, to be appreciated, should have 

 been seen on the back of an unrestrained or a 

 vicious horse; it was then that he became a 

 personality. He rode as gracefully bare-back 

 as with a saddle. I could picture him gallop- 

 ing away from some sacked and smoking town 

 — not on raw-boned Bucephalus, but on some 

 thick-set, shaggy, steppe-bred mount. Hang- 

 ing limply across his tense, gripping thighs was 

 a milk-white, gently-nurtured Ildico maiden. 

 Her wide blue eyes were stony with horror, — 

 her golden hair dabbled in the sweat of the 

 horse's heaving flank. She was bound and 

 pinioned with shreds torn from her robe of lawn. 

 The other Huns were loaded with sacks of 

 church plate, with weapons and with merchan- 

 dise. But Hendrick looked on the face of this 

 maiden, the daughter of what, but a few short 

 hours before, had been a proud and noble house, 

 — and desired her alone. But I think and hope 

 she died of terror before the bivouac was 

 reached. Hendrick was a tame, kindly, obedient 

 hunting-scout, but T am sure that the fierce, con- 

 quering Hun lay sleeping within him. 



