“Djalma!” said Rose, as with moist eyes she left off reading.

“Djalma!” repeated Blanche, who shared the emotion of her sister.  “Oh, we shall never forget that name.”

“And you will do well, my children; for it seems to be the name of a famous soldier, though a very young one.  But go on, my little Rose!”

“I have told you in the preceding pages, my dear Eva, of the two glorious days we had this month.  The troops of my old friend, the prince, which daily make fresh advances in European discipline, have performed wonders.  We have beaten the English, and obliged them to abandon a portion of this unhappy country, which they had invaded in contempt of all the rights of justice, and which they continue to ravage without mercy, for, in these parts, warfare is another name for treachery, pillage, and massacre.  This morning, after a toilsome march through a rocky and mountainous district, we received information from our scouts, that the enemy had been reinforced, and was preparing to act on the offensive; and, as we were separated from them by a distance of a few leagues only, an engagement became inevitable.  My old friend the prince, the father of my deliverer, was impatient to march to the attack.  The action began about three o’clock; it was very bloody and furious.  Seeing that our men wavered for a moment, for they were inferior in number, and the English reinforcements consisted of fresh troops, I charged at the head of our weak reserve of cavalry.  The old prince was in the centre, fighting, as he always fights, intrepidly; his son, Djalma, scarcely eighteen, as brave as his father, did not leave my side.  In the hottest part of the engagement, my horse was killed under me, and rolling over into a ravine, along the edge of which I was riding, I found myself so awkwardly entangled beneath him, that for an instant I thought my thigh was broken.”

“Poor father!” said Blanche.

“This time, happily, nothing more dangerous ensued thanks to Djalma!  You see, Dagobert,” added Rose, “that I remember the name.”  And she continued to read,

“The English thought—­and a very flattering opinion it was—­that, if they could kill me, they would make short work of the prince’s army.  So a Sepoy officer, with five or six irregulars—­cowardly, ferocious plunderers—­seeing me roll down the ravine, threw themselves into it to despatch me.  Surrounded by fire and smoke, and carried away by their ardor, our mountaineers had not seen me fall; but Djalma never left me.  He leaped into the ravine to my assistance, and his cool intrepidity saved my life.  He had held the fire of his double-barrelled carbine; with one load, he killed the officer on the spot; with the other he broke the arm of an irregular, who had already pierced my left hand with his bayonet.  But do not be alarmed, dear Eva; it is nothing—­only a scratch.”

“Wounded—­again wounded—­alas!” cried Blanche, clasping her hands together, and interrupting her sister.