Accordingly next morning he waited on colonel Tarleton, and told his name, with the smiling countenance of one who expected to be eaten up with fondness. But alas! to his infinite mortification, Tarleton heard his name without the least change of feature. After recovering a little from his embarrassment, he asked colonel Tarleton how he liked his charger. "Charger, sir!" replied Tarleton. "Yes, sir, the elegant horse I sent you yesterday." "The elegant horse you sent me, sir!" "Yes, sir, and by your sergeant, sir, as he called himself." "An elegant horse! and by my sergeant! Why really, sir, I-I-I don't understand all this!" The looks and voice of colonel Tarleton too sadly convinced the old traitor that he had been `bit'; and that young Selim was gone! then trembling and pale, cried out, "Why, my dear good sir, did you not send a sergeant yesterday with your compliments to me, and a request that I would send you my very best horse for a charger, which I did?" "No, sir, never!" replied Tarleton: "I never sent a sergeant on any such errand. Nor till this moment did I ever know that there existed on earth such a being as you." To have been outwitted in this manner by a rebel sergeant -- to have lost his peach brandy -- his hot breakfast -- his great coat -- his new saddle -- his silver mounted pistols -- and worse than all, his darling horse, his young, full-blooded, bounding Selim -- all these keen reflections, like so many forked lightnings, falling at once on the train and tinder of his passions, blew them up to such a diabolical rage that the old sinner had like to have been suffocated on the spot. He turned black in the face; he shook throughout; and as soon as he could recover breath and power of speech, he broke out into a torrent of curses, enough to raise the hair on any Christian man's head. Nor was colonel Tarleton much behind him, when he came to learn what a noble horse had slipped through his hands. And a noble horse he was indeed! Full sixteen hands high; the eye of a hawk, the spirit of the king eagle; a chest like a lion; swifter than a roebuck, and strong as a buffalo. I asked Macdonald, how he could reconcile it to himself to take the old poltroon's horse in that way? "Why, sir," replied he, "as to that matter, people will think differently; but for my part I hold that all is fair in war: and, besides, sir, if I had not taken him colonel Tarleton, no doubt, would have got him. And then, with such a swift strong charger as this, he might do us as much harm as I hope to do to them."