OR,
THE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN BALGONIE.
BY
JAMES GRANT,
AUTHOR OF "ROMANCE OF WAR," "SCOTTISH CAVALIERS,"
ETC. ETC.
NEW EDITION.
LONDON:
CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY.
TO
PROFESSOR SIR JAMES Y. SIMPSON, BART.,
M.D., D.C.L., &C., &C.,
THIS TALE,
FROM RUSSIAN MILITARY HISTORY,
IS INSCRIBED,
AS A MEMORIAL OF ADMIRATION AND SINCERE REGARD.
PREFACE.
I need scarcely inform the reader of history, thatmost of the events narrated in the subsequentpages actually occurred in the manner stated; andI have done much to soften, or subdue, the actualbarbarity of the story, though such barbarity wasconsonant enough to the days of her, whose "lustof power and contempt of all moral restraint"won her the name of "the Semiramis of theNorth."
For the betrothal of the young Lieutenant ofthe Valikolutz Infantry to his cousin, it may bementioned that a dispensation was necessary, asthe Russian Church—like the Catholic—forbidsall marriages within four degrees of relationship.
As stated in the text, the little song of thegipsy is one of many current enough in Russia,where the destruction of the Crescent is alwaysfondly predicted; but never so confidently asduring our late Crimean War: and even at thisvery time, an aged Muscovite, named AlexisAlexandrovitch, after a seclusion of many years in thedistrict of Samara, has come forth as a prophet onthe same subject, and is now proceeding fromplace to place, like another Peter the Hermit,foretelling and preaching the downfall of "thesick man" at Stamboul, and the speedy substitutionof the Russian Cross for the Turkish Crescenton the dome of St. Sophia.
26, DANUBE STREET, EDINBURGH.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
The Lost Traveller
CHAPTER II.
The Castle of Louga
CHAPTER III.
Natalie
CHAPTER IV.
Corporal Podatchkine
CHAPTER V.
The Dagger of Bernikoff
CHAPTER VI.
The Palatine
CHAPTER VII.
The Soldier of the Czarina
CHAPTER VIII.
In Love
CHAPTER IX.
Deluded
CHAPTER X.
The Corporal in his own Trap
CHAPTER XI.
Olga, the Gipsy
CHAPTER XII.
St. Petersburg
CHAPTER XIII.
What the Secret Dispatch contained
CHAPTER XIV.
Charlie's first day in Schlusselburg
...