The order was faithfully executed, poor Gregory bellowing lustily the while, after which he was obliged to return and thank the hussar officer for his lesson. "Now, then," said Richard, "did the Germans shoot forty-pounders?" "If you please, sir," replied Boksa humbly, "they didn't even fire a pistol at me." "Disarm him," was the other's order, "and set him on his horse. Then let him go whither he will. A soldier who is not ashamed to run away deserves to feel the rod on that part of his body which he shows to the enemy." Stripped of his sword and pistols and pole-axe, and with his whip hung around his neck, poor Boksa was mounted on his piebald nag and ignominiously driven out of camp. Drawing out his pipe, he looked into the bowl, took off his cap and examined it, and then inspected his tobacco-pouch; after which he replaced his cap, pocketed his pipe, closed his tobacco-pouch, and rode on. Was he hatching some deep scheme of revenge? He rode back over the very road by which he had that day taken his flight,--straight toward the enemy's camp. Suddenly he was challenged in the darkness: "Halt! Who goes there?" "Oh, how you frightened me," exclaimed the ox-herd. "I am a deserter." The sentinel ordered Boksa to wait there until the patrol came to lead him away. Soon a file-leader appeared with a common soldier and received Gregory's statement that he was a runaway from the Hungarian camp and wished to speak with the commander. He had chanced upon the encampment of a cavalry regiment, whose colonel was at the moment playing cards in his tent with some of his officers. Being told that a deserter was outside, waiting to speak with him, he ordered the man to be admitted. The officers became interested at once in the newcomer, who appeared at the same time cowardly and haughty, angry and humble; who wore the look of a suppliant and gnashed his teeth with rage, kissed every one's hand, and swore by all the saints while he was doing it. "Why did you desert?" asked the colonel. "Because they had me flogged; me, whose family has been noble for seventy-seven generations. And then they took away my arms, which cannot lawfully be taken from a nobleman even for debt, and drove me out of the camp like a dog. All right! There are other people over the mountains, and Gregory Boksa can find a market for his services elsewhere." "And in what capacity did you serve?" demanded the colonel. "As ox-herd." "As a non-combatant, then. Now I understand why you are so fierce." "Oh, I can handle my man in an honest fight," answered Gregory, "but I'm a bit put out where loud shooting is going on." The officers laughed at this naïve confession. "Very well," said the colonel; "it so happens that we need a man now who can manage oxen. We have captured a herd from the enemy, and you shall have the care of it."