theory can go without a few facts to substantiate it, when his reflections were disturbed by Captain de Banyan.

“Lieutenant Somers, I’m proud to know you, as I had occasion to remark before. I have heard of you. You distinguished yourself in the battle of Williamsburg,” said Captain de Banyan.

“You speak very handsomely of me—much better than I deserve, sir.”

“Not a particle, my boy. If there is a man in the army that can appreciate valor, that man is Captain de Banyan. You are modest, Lieutenant Somers—of course you are modest; all brave men are modest—and I forgive your blushes. I’ve seen service, my boy. Though not yet thirty-five, I served in the Crimea, in the Forty-seventh Royal Infantry; and was at the battles of Solferino, Magenta, Palestro, and others too numerous to mention.”

“Indeed!” exclaimed Lieutenant Somers, filled with admiration by the magnificent record of the captain. “Then you are not an American?”

“Oh, yes, I am! I happened to be in England when the Russian war commenced. So, being fond of a stirring life, I entered as a private in the Forty-seventh. If the war had continued six months longer, I should have come out a brigadier-general, though. Promotion is not so rapid in the British army as in our own. I was at the storming of the Redan; I was one of the first to mount the breach. Just as I had raised my musket——”

“I thought you were an officer—a colonel at least,” interposed Lieutenant Somers.

“My sword, I should have said. Just as I had raised my sword to cut down a Russian who threatened to bayonet me, a cannon-ball struck the butt of my gun——”

“Your gun?”

“The handle of my sword, I should have said, and snapped it off like a pipe-stem.”

“But didn’t it snap your hand off too?” asked the lieutenant, rather bewildered by the captain’s statements.

“Not at all; that is the most wonderful part of the story. It didn’t even graze my skin.”

“That was very remarkable,” added Lieutenant Somers, who could not see, for the life of him, how a cannon-ball could hit the handle of the sword without injuring the hand which grasped it.

“It was very remarkable, indeed; but I was reminded of the circumstance by the remembrance that you were hit in the head by a bullet, which did not kill you. I shouldn’t have mentioned the affair if I hadn’t called to mind my own experience; for life yourself, Somers, I am a modest man; in fact, every brave man is necessarily a modest man.”

“Were you ever wounded, Captain de Banyan?”

“Bless you, half a dozen times. At Magenta, the same bullet passed twice through my body.”

“The same bullet?”

“Yes, sir—the same bullet. I’ll tell you how it happened. I was in the heavy artillery there. The bullet of the Russian—”

“The Russian! Why, I thought the battle of Magenta was fought between the Austrians and the French.”

“You are right, my boy. The bullet of the Austrian, I should have said, passed through my left lung, struck the cannon behind me, bounded back, and hitting me again, passed through my right lung. When it came out, it hit my musket, and dropped upon the ground. I picked it up, and have it at home now.”

“Whew!” added Lieutenant Somers in a low whisper. “It’s quite warm to-day,” he continued, trying to turn off the remark.

“Very warm, indeed.”

“But didn’t you fall after the ball had passed through both your lungs?”

“Not at all. I walked five miles to the hospital. On my way, I met the Emperor Napoleon, who got off his horse, and thanked me for the valor I had displayed, and conferred on me the medal of the Legion of Honor. I keep the medal in the same bag with the bullet.”

“Then you have actually shaken hands with the Emperor of France?” cried the amazed lieutenant.

“Yes; and King Victor Emmanuel called to see me in the hospital, where I was confined for five weeks. At Solferino, both their majesties shook hands with me, and thanked me again for my services. Being a modest man, I shouldn’t want to say out loud that I saved the day for the French and Sardinians at Solferino. At any rate, their majesties did the handsome thing by me on that day.”

“I thought you were in the hospital five weeks after Magenta.”

“So I was; and well do I remember the little delicacies sent me by the King of Italy while I lay there on my back. Ah! that Victor Emmanuel is a noble fellow. At Solferino, he——”

“But how could you have been at Solferino, if you were in the hospital five weeks?”

“I did not die of my wounds, it is scarcely necessary for me to remark. I got well.”

“But the battle of Solferino was fought on the 20th of June, and that of Magenta on the 4th of June. There were only twenty days between the battles.”

“You are right, Somers. I have made some mistake in the dates. I never was good at remembering them. When I was in college, the professors used to laugh at me for forgetting the date of the Christian Era. By the way, do you smoke, Somers? Let’s go into the smoking-car, and have a cigar.”

“I thank you; I never smoke.”

“Ah! you are worse than a hot potato. But I am dying for a smoke; and, if you will excuse me, I will go forward. I will see you again before we get to New York.”

Captain de Banyan, apparently entirely satisfied with himself, rose from his seat, and sauntered gracefully forward to the door of the car, through which he disappeared, leaving Lieutenant Somers busy in a vain endeavor to crowd five weeks in between the 4th and the 20th of June. The captain was certainly a pleasant and voluble person, and Somers had enjoyed the interview; though he could not repress a rising curiosity to see the bullet which had passed twice through the body of the valiant soldier, and the medal of the Legion of Honor conferred upon him by his imperial majesty the Emperor of France.

Some painful doubts in regard to the truth of Captain de Banyan’s remarkable experience were beginning to intrude themselves into his mind; and it is quite probable that he would have been hurled into an unhappy state of skepticism, if the train in which he was riding had not been suddenly hurled down an embankment some twenty feet in height, where the cars were piled up in shapeless wrecks, and human beings, full of life and hope a moment before, were suddenly ushered into eternity, or maimed and mangled for life.

A scene terribly beyond the power of description was presented to the gaze of Lieutenant Somers when he recovered his scattered senses. The car had been literally wrenched to pieces, and the passengers were partially buried beneath the fragments. Our traveler was stunned by the shock, and made giddy by the wild vaulting of the car as it leaped down the embankment to destruction. He was bruised and lacerated; but he was not seriously injured. He did not make the mistake which many persons do under such trying circumstances, of believing that they are killed; or, if their senses belie this impression, that they shall die within a brief period.

Lieutenant Somers was endowed with a remarkable degree of self-possession, and never gave up anything as long as there was any chance of holding on. He saw a great many stars not authenticated in any respectable catalogue of celestial luminaries. His thoughts, and even his vitality, seemed to be suspended for an instant; but the thoughts came back, and the stream of life still