desire is to embrace you. If ever you should be in
Gascony----'

'Lord Wellington is coming there with 60,000 men.'

'Then one of them will have a chance of surviving,' said I, laughing.
'In the meantime, put your sword in your sheath!'

Our horses were standing head to tail, and the Bart put out his hand and
patted me on the thigh.

'You're a good chap, Gerard,' said he. 'I only wish you had been born on
the right side of the Channel.'

'I was,' said I.

'Poor devil!' he cried, with such an earnestness of pity that he set me
laughing again. 'But look here, Gerard,' he continued; 'this is all very
well, but it is not business, you know. I don't know what Massena would
say to it, but our Chief would jump out of his riding-boots if he saw
us. We weren't sent out here for a picnic--either of us.'

'What would you have?'

'Well, we had a little argument about our hussars and dragoons, if you
remember. I've got fifty of the Sixteenth all chewing their carbine
bullets behind me. You've got as many fine-looking boys over yonder, who
seem to be fidgeting in their saddles. If you and I took the right
flanks we should not spoil each other's beauty--though a little
blood-letting is a friendly thing in this climate.'

There seemed to me to be a good deal of sense in what he said. For the
moment Mr Alexis Morgan and the Countess of La Ronda and the Abbey of
Almeixal went right out of my head, and I could only think of the fine
level turf and of the beautiful skirmish which we might have.

'Very good, Bart,' said I. 'We have seen the front of your dragoons. We
shall now have a look at their backs.'

'Any betting?' he asked.

'The stake,' said I, 'is nothing less than the honour of the Hussars of
Conflans.'

'Well, come on!' he answered. 'If we break you, well and good--if you
break us, it will be all the better for Marshal Millefleurs.'

When he said that I could only stare at him in astonishment.

'Why for Marshal Millefleurs?' I asked.

'It is the name of a rascal who lives out this way. My dragoons have
been sent by Lord Wellington to see him safely hanged.'

'Name of a name!' I cried. 'Why, my hussars have been sent by Massena
for that very object.'

We burst out laughing at that, and sheathed our swords. There was a
whirr of steel from behind us as our troopers followed our example.

'We are allies!' he cried.

'For a day.'

'We must join forces.'

'There is no doubt of it.'

And so, instead of fig