From the rear came riding a troop of hussars, apparently engaged in scouting-practice. The bridge was supposed to have been destroyed, and they were trying to find a place for fording the river. The officer first drove his horse into the water, and the animal sank at once up to its neck, but then began to swim, and soon reached the opposite side. The hussars followed smartly and quickly, and the troop proceeded onward from the other bank, leaving wet traces on the light sandy soil. The officer galloped up closer to the marching battery. Reimers recognised an old companion from the Military Academy. "You, Ottensen?" he cried. "What a strange chance!" "Isn't it?" said the hussar. "Pity I've no time to stop. I must teach my chaps to scout!" They exchanged a pressure of the hand; then the cavalry officer spurred on his horse, and disappeared in a cloud of yellow dust. Shortly after this the battery came upon the hussars for a second time. The riders had dismounted at the edge of a fir plantation. One hussar after another was being made to buckle on the climbing-irons and climb up a tree-trunk in order to survey the surrounding country with a telescope. The lieutenant was examining them, and testing their reports by the map. "Not seen you for a long time, Reimers!" he laughed, as the battery marched by. "Just look; these chaps climb like monkeys!" Reimers nodded gaily to his lively friend. It was indeed a pleasure to watch the agile hussars. "Wait a bit!" said Ottensen, "I'll ride a little way with you." He asked Senior-lieutenant Frommelt politely for permission, and sent his men back in charge of a sergeant. Then he joined the battery, chattering away gaily in his droll, staccato fashion, and making his horse leap the ditch from time to time. He sat his magnificent steed splendidly, and with his slender, neatly-made figure, looked the perfect model of a cavalry officer. Reimers looked at him with honest admiration and pleasure. "Your hussars are smart fellows!" he said. Ottensen smiled, well pleased, and said: "Well, perhaps so!" "They climb the trees well," continued the artilleryman. "I should think so!" said Ottensen. "Trees, corn-stacks, church-towers, roofs of houses, telegraph-posts, and devil knows what besides--mountain-tops too, only there aren't any hereabouts." "Perhaps there will be during the man[oe]uvres." The hussar let his single eye-glass fall, and showed an astonished face. "Man[oe]uvres, my dear fellow? Why, all's plain sailing in them!" "How do you mean? Plain sailing?" "The rendezvous all fixed up beforehand, with friends on the enemy's side; simultaneous luncheons arranged for when possible. Every detail settled in advance." The little hussar suddenly burst out laughing: "Reimers! my dear fellow!" he cried, "don't pull a face like a funeral march! Do you mean to say you didn't know it? You didn't? Well!" Reimers asked him: "But what do you take to be the object of the man[oe]uvres?"