observing me from a distance, for a sparrow sat betwixt
us quite unalarmed on the breech of a piece of cannon. So soon as our
eyes met, he drew near and addressed me in the French language, which he
spoke with a good fluency but an abominable accent.

"I have the pleasure of addressing Monsieur le Vicomte Anne de Keroual
de Saint-Yves?" said he.

"Well," said I, "I do not call myself all that; but I have a right to,
if I choose. In the meanwhile I call myself plain Champdivers, at your
disposal. It was my mother's name, and good to go soldiering with."

"I think not quite," said he; "for if I remember rightly your mother
also had the particle. Her name was Florimonde de Champdivers."

"Right again," said I, "and I am extremely pleased to meet a gentleman
so well informed in my quarterings. Is monsieur Born himself?" This I
said with a great air of assumption, partly to conceal the degree of
curiosity with which my visitor had inspired me, and in part because it
struck me as highly incongruous and comical in my prison garb and on the
lips of a private soldier.

He seemed to think so too, for he laughed.

"No, sir," he returned, speaking this time in English; "I am not
'_born_,' as you call it, and must content myself with _dying_, of which
I am equally susceptible with the best of you. My name is Mr.
Romaine--Daniel Romaine--a solicitor of London city, at your service;
and, what will perhaps interest you more, I am here at the request of
your great-uncle, the Count."

"What!" I cried, "does M. de Keroual de Saint-Yves remember the
existence of such a person as myself, and will he deign to count kinship
with a soldier of Napoleon?"

"You speak English well," observed my visitor.

"It has been a second language to me from a child," said I. "I had an
English nurse; my father spoke English with me; and I was finished by a
countryman of yours and a dear friend of mine, a Mr. Vicary."

A strong expression of interest came into the lawyer's face.

"What!" he cried, "you knew poor Vicary?"

"For more than a year," said I; "and shared his hiding-place for many
months."

"And I was his clerk, and have succeeded him in business," said he.
"Excellent man! It was on the affairs of M. de Keroual that he went to
that accursed country, from which he was never destined to return. Do
you chance to know his end, sir?"

"I am sorry," said I, "I do. He perished miserably at the hands of a
gang of banditti, such as we call _c