's bill; but the body
was cold and stiff, and did not readily yield its garment.

I, however, succeeded in obtaining my object; in which I arrayed myself,
and went on in search of the colonel's sword; but here I had been
anticipated by a Frenchman. The colonel, indeed, lay there, stiff
enough, but his sword was gone. I was preparing to return, when I
encountered, not a dead, but a living enemy.

"_Qui vive_?" said a low voice.

"_Anglais bete_!" answered I, in a low tone: and added, "_mais les
corsairs ne se battent pas_."

"C'est vrai," said he; and growling, "_bon soir_," he was soon out of
sight. I scrambled back to the castle, gave the counter-sign to the
sentinel, and showed my new great-coat with a vast deal of glee and
satisfaction; some of my comrades went on the same sort of expedition,
and were rewarded with more or less success.

In a few days, the dead bodies on the breach were nearly denuded by
nightly visitors; but that of the colonel lay respected and untouched.
The heat of the day had blackened it, and it was now deprived of all its
manly beauty, and nothing remained but a loathsome corpse. The rules of
war, as well as of humanity, demanded the honourable interment of the
remains of this hero; and our captain, who was the very flower of
chivalry, desired me to stick a white handkerchief on a pike, as a flag
of truce, and bury the bodies, if the enemy would permit us.

I went out accordingly, with a spade and a pick-axe; but the
_tirailleurs_ on the hill began with their rifles, and wounded one of my
men. I looked at the captain, as much as to say, "Am I to proceed?" He
motioned with his hand to go on, and I then began digging a hole by the
side of a dead body, and the enemy, seeing my intention, desisted from
firing. I had buried several, when the captain came out and joined me,
with a view of reconnoitring the position of the enemy. He was seen
from the fort, and recognised; and his intention pretty accurately
guessed at.

We were near the body of the colonel, which we were going to inter; when
the captain, observing a diamond-ring on the finger of the corpse, said
to one of the sailors, "You may just as well take that off; it can be of
no use to him now." The man tried to get it off; but the rigidity of
the muscles after death prevented his moving it. "He won't feel your
knife, poor fellow," said the captain; "and a finger more or less is no
great matter to him now: off with it."

T