THE CHASE. 231 



carbine dropped dead, with a bullet through his 

 chest, whilst the horse of the second rolled over 

 mortally wounded. This unexpected rencontre 

 damped the ardour of the third, for he pulled up 

 until he was joined by some more of his party, 

 when the chase was continued. Plaving rid myself 

 of the most dangerous of our pursuers, and inspired 

 the rest with a wholesome fear of the powers of 

 my grooved bore, I jumped on my horse, and, re- 

 loading en route, soon overtook Fritz, who at my 

 recommendation now eased his horse a little, as 

 the pace we had been doing was killing, and could 

 not possibly last. I calculated that we had covered 

 five miles of ground since first the chase began, 

 and I believed that we were still three miles from 

 the Danube ; for in the excitement of the run 1 

 had not paid much attention to the landmarks, 

 which in this part of the country are few and far 

 between. We breathed our horses until the clat- 

 tering of hoofs behind us again intimated the near 

 approach of the enemy, and again bullets whistled 

 around us. My rifle killed when their smooth- 

 bored carbines were useless, so I turned in the 



