rn--General Chanzy
will take charge of Mademoiselle de Nesville, for my uncle's
sake. They are sword-brothers."

"I accept the responsibility," said the old general, gravely.

They bowed to each other, and Jack went out and down the stairs
to the lawn. For a moment he looked up into the sky, trying to
remember where the balloon might have been when Von Steyr's
explosive bullet set it on fire. Then he trudged on into the
wood-road, buckling his revolver-case under his arm and adjusting
the cross-strap of his field-glasses.

Once in the forest he breathed more freely. There was an odour of
rotting leaves in the wet air; the branches quivered and dripped,
and the tree-trunks, moist and black, exhaled a rank aroma of
lichens and rain-soaked moss.

Along the park wall, across the Lisse, sentinels stood in the rain,
peering out of their caped overcoats or rambling along the river-bank.
A spiritless challenge or two halted him for a few moments, but he
gave the word and passed on. Once or twice squads met him and passed
with the relief, sick boyish soldiers, crusted with mud. Twice he met
groups of roving, restless-eyed franc-tireurs in straight caps and
sheepskin jackets, but they did not molest him nor even question him
beyond asking the time of day.

And now he passed the carrefour where he and Lorraine had first
met. Its only tenant was a sentinel, yellow with jaundice, who
seized his chassepot with shaking hands and called a shrill "Qui
Vive?"

From the carrefour Jack turned to the left straight into the
heart of the forest. He risked losing his way; he risked more
than that, too, for a shot from sentry or franc-tireur was not
improbable, and, more-over, nobody knew whether Uhlans were in
the woods or not.

As he advanced the forest growth became thicker; underbrush, long
uncut, rose higher than his head. Over logs and brush tangles he
pressed, down into soft, boggy gullys deep with dead leaves,
across rapid, dark brooks, threads of the river Lisse, over stony
ledges, stumps, windfalls, and on towards the break in the trees
from which, on clear days, one could see the turret-spire of the
Chateau de Nesville. When he reached this point he looked in vain
for the turret; the rain hid it. Still, he could judge fairly
well in which direction it lay, and he knew that the distance was
half a mile.

"The balloon dropped near here," he muttered, and started in a
circle, taking a gigantic beech-tree as the centre mark.