The coolness of the evening induced me to think of a canter as far as the villa d’Alfieri. Summoning the groom, I desired him to saddle Cartouche; while, with rather more care than usual, I made my toilet: for I was about to pay my devoirs to the fair Bianca. In those days, when one was not on duty, the uniform coat was worn open, with the lappelles buttoned back, to show the facings barred with silver; the sash and swordbelt being worn under it, and over a white kerseymere waistcoat. White breeches, long jackboots reaching above the knee, and equipped with jangling spurs, a heavy sabre with a brass sheath, buff gloves, and a cocked hat with a drooping plume of scarlet and white feathers, completed the uniform of a British staff officer. I was just setting forth, when the ill-omened visage of the general’s orderly, an old and sunburnt serjeant of the 81st, appeared at the door: erect as a ramrod, he raised his hand to his bear-skin cap, and placed a despatch in my hand. "Hallo, Pierce! what’s fresh now?" "Sir John’s compliments, sir, and he requests you will make all speed with this before the night sets in." "Now, by all the gods! ’tis mere slavery this staff work—I’ll resign, and join the 62d at Syracuse!" I muttered, while tearing open the note accompanying the dispatch—an oblong document, addressed "O.H.M.S., To Lt.-Col. Macleod, Ross-shire Buffs, Crotona." "Dear Dundas (ran the note), You will ride forthwith, and deliver the accompanying letter at Crotona. If it suits your taste, stay there to partake of the fighting; but bring me word the moment it capitulates. Yours, &c., "JOHN STUART, Maj.-Gen." There was no course but to obey: yet I determined that my original purpose of visiting Bianca should not be interfered with. Thrusting the despatch into the sabretache, I buckled on my sabre, and in five minutes was en route, with all the worldly goods I possessed (at least in Calabria) strapped to the saddle before and behind me. In front were a pair of excellent pistols, newly oiled, flinted and loaded, and my blue cloak was rolled and buckled over the holsters; a valise was strapped behind me, containing a few changes of linen, and a fighting jacket: a handful of cigars and an Army List, a horse-picker and a cork-screw, with a copy of "The Eighteen Manoeuvres" (compiled by my namesake Sir David Dundas), completed my camp equipage; the whole of our heavy baggage having been left behind us in Sicily. The telescope—an appendage indispensable to a staff-officer—I carried in a pipe-clayed case, slung across my left shoulder.