n remote districts were accustomed thus
to pass the summer nights, with no other covering save the blue vault above
them. It was not impossible, too, that it might prove a Guerilla party, who
frequently, in small numbers, hang upon the rear of a retreating army. Thus
conjecturing, I crossed the stream, and quickening my pace, walked forward
in the direction of the blaze. For a moment a projecting rock obstructed my
progress; and while I was devising some means of proceeding farther, the
sound of voices near me arrested my attention. I listened, and what was my
astonishment to hear that they spoke in French. I now crept cautiously to
the verge of the rock and looked over; the moon was streaming in its full
brilliancy upon a little shelving strand beside the stream, and here I
now beheld the figure of a French officer. He was habited in the undress
uniform of a _chasseur a cheval_, but wore no arms; indeed his occupation
at the moment was anything but a warlike one, he being leisurely employed
in collecting some flasks of champagne which apparently had been left to
cool within the stream.

"_Eh bien, Alphonse!_" said a voice in the direction of the fire, "what are
you delaying for?"

"I'm coming, I'm coming," said the other; "but, _par Dieu!_ I can only find
five of our bottles; one seems to have been carried away by the stream."

"No matter," replied the other, "we are but three of us, and one is, or
should be, on the sick list."

The only answer to this was the muttered chorus of a French drinking-song,
interrupted at intervals by an imprecation upon the missing flask. It
chanced, at this moment, that a slight clinking noise attracted me, and on
looking down, I perceived at the foot of the rock the prize he sought for.
It had been, as he conceived, carried away by an eddy of the stream and was
borne, as a true prisoner-of-war, within my grasp. I avow that from this
moment my interest in the scene became considerably heightened; such a waif
as a bottle of champagne was not to be despised in circumstances like mine;
and I watched with anxious eyes every gesture of the impatient Frenchman,
and alternately vibrated between hope and fear, as he neared or receded
from the missing flask.

"Let it go to the devil," shouted his companion, once more. "Jacques has
lost all patience with you."

"Be it so, then," said the other, as he prepared to take up his burden. At
this instant I made a slight effort so to change my positio