170 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



pleasure, a mischievous joy, if I may so call it, in 

 the peril and excitement of the scene. 



Whilst I was getting over my terrors, my com- 

 panion was moving about the battery with his usual 

 sangfroid, reconnoitring the enemy. He ran no use- 

 less risk, kept himself well behind the breastworks, 

 stooping down when necessary, and taking all proper 

 care of himself. When he had completed his recon- 

 naissance, he, to my no small astonishment, took off 

 his coat and neck-handkerchief, the latter of which 

 he tied tight round his waist, then taking a rammer 

 from the hand of a soldier who had just fallen, he 

 ordered, or rather signed to the artilleryman to draw 

 the gun back. 



There was something so cool and decided in his 

 manner, that they obeyed without testifying any sur- 

 prise at his interference, and as though he had been 

 one of their own officers. He loaded the piece, had 

 it drawn forward again, pointed and fired it. He 

 then went to the next gun and did the same thing 

 there. He seemed so perfectly at home in the bat- 

 tery that nobody ever dreamed of disputing Ms author- 

 ity, and the two guns were entirely under his direc- 

 tion. I had now got used to the thing myself, so I 

 went forward and offered my services, which, in the 

 scarcity of men (so many having been killed), were 

 not to be refused, and I helped to draw the guns 

 backwards and forwards and load them. The captain 

 kept running from one to the other, pointing them, 



