g."

"Are you quite sure?" asked Harold doubtfully.

"Quite," I replied. "Frenchmen only shut you up in a thing called the
Bastille; and then you get a file sent in to you in a loaf of bread,
and saw the bars through, and slide down a rope, and they all fire at
you--but they don't hit you--and you run down to the seashore as hard as
you can, and swim off to a British frigate, and there you are!"

Harold brightened up again. The programme was rather attractive.

"If they try to take us prisoner," he said, "we--we won't run, will we?"

Meanwhile, the craven foe was a long time showing himself; and we were
reaching strange outland country, uncivilised, wherein lions might be
expected to prowl at nightfall. I had a stitch in my side, and both
Harold's stockings had come down. Just as I was beginning to have gloomy
doubts of the proverbial courage of Frenchmen, the officer called
out something, the men closed up, and, breaking into a trot, the
troops--already far ahead--vanished out of our sight. With a sinking at
the heart, I began to suspect we had been fooled.

"Are they charging?" cried Harold, weary, but rallying gamely.

"I think not," I replied doubtfully. "When there's going to be a charge,
the officer always makes a speech, and then they draw their swords and
the trumpets blow, and--but let's try a short cut. We may catch them up
yet."

So we struck across the fields and into another road, and pounded down
that, and then over more fields, panting, down-hearted, yet hoping for
the best. The sun went in, and a thin drizzle began to fall; we were
muddy, breathless, almost dead beat; but we blundered on, till at last
we struck a road more brutally, more callously unfamiliar than any
road I ever looked upon. Not a hint nor a sign of friendly direction
or assistance on the dogged white face of it. There was no longer
any disguising it--we were hopelessly lost. The small rain continued
steadily, the evening began to come on. Really there are moments when a
fellow is justified in crying; and I would have cried too, if Harold had
not been there. That right-minded child regarded an elder brother as a
veritable god; and I could see that he felt himself as secure as if a
whole Brigade of Guards hedged him round with protecting bayonets. But I
dreaded sore lest he should begin again with his questions.

As I gazed in dumb appeal on the face of unresponsive nature, the sound
of nearing wheels sent a pulse of hope through