He kept close beside the standard, smoking his cigar as coolly as if he had been in a cafe.

Every now and then their bugles played a flourish, as if to defy us.

I sent my two leading squadrons at them.

Whew! Instead of breaking the front of the square, my dragoons passed along the sides, wheeled, and came back in great disorder, and with several riderless horses--and all the time those cursed bugles went on playing.

When the smoke which had hung over the battalion cleared away, I saw the officer still puffing at his cigar beside his eagle.