of the captured muskets,
prepared to take a part in the strife which had been so well begun.

Upon gaining the forest a halt was ordered. Great fires were lit, and
the companies mustered, when it was found that some eighty of those
present had received wounds, and that forty had fallen. All the
wounded unable to walk had been carried off, as to leave them where
they fell would be to expose them to certain death when found by the
Russians. A plentiful supply of spirits had been found in the stores,
and several barrels brought off. An ample allowance was now served
out, and after an hour's carouse in honor of the victory the band,
fatigued by their exertions, went off to sleep.

In the morning the guns--now amounting to two complete batteries--were
taken some miles farther into the forest. The greater part of the band
insisted upon returning to their homes for a few days, and their
leader, finding himself powerless to resist the determination gave
them leave to do so. All agreed to return at the end of ten days. Some
400 men remained, and from these the count requested the midshipmen to
choose a sufficient number to constitute two batteries, each eighty
strong, and to drill them as far as possible in the interval. He
himself started to visit his estates, which lay about eighty miles
from their present position. Here he hoped to raise a further
contingent of men, and all who went home were bidden to bring back
fresh recruits, and to spread everywhere the news of the victory.

Six days elapsed, and the band in the forest had already been
increased by many hundreds of new-comers, whom the news of the
successes which had been gained had induced to take up arms, and the
time of the various leaders was fully occupied in giving some notion
of drill and of the use of the musket to the new levies.

On the evening of the sixth day a peasant arrived with intelligence
which spread dismay in the encampment. Count Stanislas had been
captured by the Russians, having been surprised by a body of Russian
cavalry, who, doubtless by means of a spy, had obtained news of his
return home. He had been conveyed to Lublin, where he would doubtless
be at once tried and executed.

A council of the leaders was hastily summoned.

Lublin was a large town garrisoned by some 5000 Russian troops, and
even had the whole of the insurgent bands been collected, they would
not have been strong enough to attempt a repetition of their late
successful surp