To _take_ him was the point.--The truly brave, When they behold the brave oppressed with odds, Are touched with a desire to shield and save;-- A mixture of wild beasts and demi-gods Are they--now furious as the sweeping wave, Now moved with pity: even as sometimes nods The rugged tree unto the summer wind, Compassion breathes along the savage mind. CVII. But he would _not_ be _taken_, and replied To all the propositions of surrender By mowing Christians down on every side, As obstinate as Swedish Charles at Bender.[469] His five brave boys no less the foe defied; Whereon the Russian pathos grew less tender As being a virtue, like terrestrial patience,[il] Apt to wear out on trifling provocations. CVIII. And spite of Johnson and of Juan, who Expended all their Eastern phraseology In begging him, for God's sake, just to show So much less fight as might form an apology For _them_ in saving such a desperate foe-- He hewed away, like Doctors of Theology When they dispute with sceptics; and with curses Struck at his friends, as babies beat their nurses. CIX. Nay, he had wounded, though but slightly, both Juan and Johnson; whereupon they fell, The first with sighs, the second with an oath, Upon his angry Sultanship, pell-mell, And all around were grown exceeding wroth At such a pertinacious infidel, And poured upon him and his sons like rain, Which they resisted like a sandy plain CX. That drinks and still is dry. At last they perished-- His second son was levelled by a shot; His third was sabred; and the fourth, most cherished Of all the five, on bayonets met his lot; The fifth, who, by a Christian mother nourished, Had been neglected, ill-used, and what not, Because deformed, yet died all game and bottom,[im] To save a Sire who blushed that he begot him. CXI. The eldest was a true and tameless Tartar, As great a scorner of the Nazarene As ever Mahomet picked out for a martyr, Who only saw the black-eyed girls in green, Who make the beds of those who won't take quarter On earth, in Paradise; and when once seen, Those houris, like all other pretty creatures, Do just whate'er they please, by dint of features. CXII. And what they pleased to do with the young Khan In Heaven I know not, nor pretend to guess; But doubtless they prefer a fine young man To tough old heroes, and can do no less;[in] And that's the cause no doubt why, if we scan A field of battle's ghastly wilderness, For one rough, weather-beaten, veteran body, You'll find ten thousand handsome coxcombs bloody. CXIII.