90 HORSE, FOOT, AND DRAGOONS. 



and they were all hopeful of spending a quiet night, undis- 

 turbed by those wretched " Green Hussars," who had so per- 

 sistently bothered the videttes up to sunset. I bade them 

 good -night, and started back over the fields to rejoin my 

 friends at the bivouac — a way easily found, for, after skirting 

 the little hills that formed the sides of the hollow, I could 

 see the orlare of the fires that had meanwhile been liohted. 



Away off on the horizon a yellow flickering light betokened 

 the presence of the main body of our corps, whence, as I stood 

 for a moment alone in the darkness, enjoying the weird strange- 

 ness of the scene, there came, borne on the evening wind over 

 the distant fields, faintly yet distinctly, the plaintive sound of the 

 fifes and muffled rolling of the drums, rising and falling in one 

 strange, sad, sweet note, and then dying away in a last long- 

 drawn wail. It was " das Locken," or call for assembly, and 

 was followed after a moment's pause by the crash of the 

 regimental bands, mellowed and softened by the distance, play- 

 ing the martial German " Zapfenstreich " — the tattoo — and I 

 knew the hour of rest had come. 



Hurrying forward, I reached our bivouac just as the troop 

 was falling in for the evening prayer, although no tattoo had 

 been beaten there, we being too near the enemy, and the music 

 might have betrayed our whereabouts. Quietly our little force 

 moved up in front of the fires, the guard standing to their arms. 

 "Halt! Richt euch !" and they stood there motionless in one 

 solid, dark block, relieving strong against the bright light of the 

 fires and columns of smoke and sparks rising almost straight 

 upward to the black heavens. Out of the darkness came a 

 short word of command, " Caps off for prayer !" and in solemn, 

 unbroken silence, with uncovered and reverently bowed heads, 

 the rough soldiers rendered thanks to the Almighty for His 

 mercies. 



