e you wouldn't be
visiting and making holiday here; but do you mind shaking hands?"

"Yes," said Rodd hotly, "I know: I suppose I have done wrong, and you
have got your duty to do; so go and do it."

"Here," cried the sergeant, "grip, boy, grip! I like you for all this
more and more. I had my duty to do, and I did it as far as I could; but
I was too late. The prisoners had escaped, and we have heard this
morning, the news being brought by a miserable-looking sneak of a fellow
who had come to the governor to ask for the reward for not taking them,
that they got down to Salcombe very late last night and boarded one of
the orange boats in the little harbour, where I expect they had friends
waiting for them, for the schooner sailed at once, and I dare say they
are within sight of a French port before now. Yes, I had my duty to do,
me and my lads, but the prisoners escaped, same as I would if I had been
in a French prison, shut up for doing nothing, and because our two
countries were at war. There, I am not going to blame you now it's all
over, as you own to it like a man. They both came to you, I suppose,
for a bit of help, and you gave it to them. But when I was on duty I
should have nailed you if I had caught you in the act. There, that'll
do. Thought I should like to tell you about it, and hold you like at
the point of the bayonet, and see what you'd say. I know it's precious
hard to tell the truth sometimes, and it must have been very hard here.
But you did it like a man. But I say: you never thought that basket and
wallet would tell tales when you left those poor beggars a mouthful to
eat; and I hope if there's any more war to come and I'm took, and make a
good try to slip away--I hope, I say, that I shall come upon some brave
young French lad who will do as good a turn to me as you did to those
poor fellows, who were making a run for freedom, and to get out of the
reach of our bayonets and guns."

Rodd thrust his hand into his pocket, and flushed up now more than ever,
for the sergeant caught him by the wrist.

"No, no, my lad," he cried; "none of that! I didn't come here to get
money out of you. I was a boy once myself. Only a common one, but
pretty straightforward and honest, or else I don't suppose I should have
won these three gold chevrons which I have got here upon my arm. Well,
I wouldn't have taken pay then for doing a dirty action, fond as I was
of coppers with the King's head on; and I woul