McMAHON'S LEAP FOR LIFE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 75, 3 October 1874, Page 11

McMAHON'S LEAP FOR LIFE.

In 1831, President McMahon, then a young lieutenant, serving with the French Army in Algeria, under the command of Marshal Bugeaud, ■was stationed with a smtill company of men at an outlying settlement, forty miles from headquarters. The Arabs, lhen bittei'ly hostile to the n(w colonists, besieeed the small fort., slaughtered all the soldiers they could catch, intercepted nil supplies, and brought tho little garrison to the very verge of starvation. Capitulation was not to be thought of, for that meant immediate slaughter. Help from the marshal was not to be expected, for he was quite unaware of their danger ; in fact, oil hope seemed lost, wlieii McMahon volunteered to be the bearer of •despatches announcing their predicament. The commandant thought the venture perfectly useless, as the intervening country was absolutely alive with infuriated Arabs ; but, being aware that help mast come in that manner, if it came at all, he reluctantly consented to what he considered at the time was the desperate sacrifice of a. valuable life, McYlauon, perfectly overjoyed at gaining consent to his enterprise, spent the short time intervening before his stnrt in looking care1..11.V to the equipment of his horse, and to his own accoutrements, and in the first hour of darkness he set out, brisk, blvthe, and debonnaire as ever gay young soldier on parade, with bright eyes gazing on his splendor. The wily Arabs, seldom caught unaware, soon noted his departure, and followed hard and fast in his rear; but seeing that his •course lay toward a brond and deep ravine, some five miles from the post, they spread out wildly, hoping to outflank him when he should be compelled to turn at the. brink, and so, securing him alive, learn from him under torture all those particulars concerning the French forces which they wanted to obtain. McMahon, who had in the first mile or two easily distanced them, rnderstood their plan thoroughly, and was well prepared to meet it.. He looked back and saw in the moonlight the constantly increasing crowd of white-clad warriors spreading out- in. a wide semi-circle behind him. He knew well how they exulted in the thought that they would wring from his tortured frame all thesecrets they wanted to know, and he quickly slackened a little the headlong speed of his horse, in order to reserve its strength for the effort he had determined upon, that should, he hoped, save life and liberty. The Arabs, thinking that his hoi-se was already failing, renewed their efforts to overtake and surround him, and by tho time he had reached withm a few hundred yards of the brink, "their shouts of triumph were clearly audible. But, Arabs, as well as other men, sometimes count their chickens before they are hatched, and so it proved they had done in this case. They had headed him almost to to the brink of the dieadful chasm, and followed hard behind, certain of an easy capture, when, all of a sudden, obedient to the master's resolute hand upon the reign, the horse broke into swifc gallop, and, with a touch from, the spur, a flick from the glove, and an encouraging woid from the well-known voice, gallant steed and gallant rider cleared the yawning gap, and, landing on the opposite fide, were out of sight -of the enraged Arabs before they could get the slightest chance of taking even a deliberate aim. In two hours more McMahon stood before his astounded cinef, and two hours after that, refusing rest and i-elief, he accompanied the aid ho had risked his life to procure, on its Avay to his beleaguered companions.