"This," said he, "shall be the last day's duty I will ever do in the -- th Hussars; not that I care a straw for the walking, as I can walk as well as any man in the regiment, but because I have been punished undeservedly by a man _who is a deserter from another regiment_," this was alluding to the sergeant who had reported him to the commanding officer for "carelessness" in letting the horse loose, although the poor fellow had stuck to his hold on the bridle of "Restless," until actually pulled out of his seat. There was a dogged determination about David Mason (for that was his name, and a better soldier never threw his leg over a saddle) as he uttered these words, while sitting on the edge of his bed and stripping his worsted socks from his blistered and bleeding feet, having limped into the barrack-yard with one hand resting on the rear part of the baggage cart, about half an hour after the arrival of the detachment. "This is the last day's duty I shall ever do in the --th Hussars," he repeated to a lance-corporal who had heard a portion of his first ejaculation. "You had better make haste and get down to stables," said the corporal. I was grooming my horse when David entered the stable, and he at once walked up to the sergeant and confronted him. "Sergeant D--," said he, "you are a _tyrant_, a _coward_, and a _deserter_ from the 52nd Light Infantry!" The sergeant trembled like an aspen leaf, and his face turned as pale as a sheet: turning to me and a comrade in the next stall, "Take this man to the guard-room," and poor Mason was at once escorted to confinement. They were _both_ deserters: Mason from the 82nd foot, and the sergeant from the 52nd; but by some means or other, never explained to me, Mason knew the sergeant while the sergeant did not know Mason, although it was said that he had more than once hinted that the latter had the appearance of a foot soldier in some peculiarity which he probably better understood than any man in the regiment. Both men had joined our regiment in fictitious names, but Mason had the advantage of knowing the sergeant's real name, and, when taken before the colonel on the following day, he made a clean breast of it by telling the sergeant's name and the date of his desertion, also stating that he was himself a deserter, having enlisted in our corps only two days from leaving his own, solely because he thought he should like to be a cavalry soldier better than serving in an infantry regiment. The adjutant of the 52nd was communicated with at once, and Mason's story found to be correct. The sergeant was put under arrest, until an escort arrived from his own regiment to take him to head-quarters, where he was tried by court-martial and flogged. Mason also left our corps under an escort of the 82nd sent to fetch him; and I afterwards heard that, although he was tried by court-martial, he got off with a light punishment. CHAPTER SEVEN.