low voice, and as if pondering
over it.

"Yes; one and all agreed in thinking there could not be a doubt of the
result."

"Where have you served, sir?" asked he, suddenly turning on me, and
with a look that showed he was resolved to test the character of the
witness.

"With Moreau, sir, on the Rhine and the Schwarzwald; in Ireland with
Humbert."

"Your regiment?"

"The Ninth Hussars."

"The 'Tapageurs,'" said he, laughing. "I know them, and glad I am not to
have their company here at this moment; you were a lieutenant?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, supposing that, on the faith of what you have told me, I was to
follow the wise counsel of these gentlemen, would you like the
alternative of gaining your promotion in the event of success, or being
shot by a peloton if we fail."

"They seem sharp terms, sir," said I, smiling, "when it is remembered,
that no individual efforts of mine can either promote one result or the
other."

"Ay, but they can, sir," cried he, quickly. "If _you_ should turn out to
be an Austro-English spy; if these tidings be of a character to lead my
troops into danger; if, in reliance on _you_, I should be led to
compromise the honor and safety of a French army--_your_ life, were it
worth ten thousand times over your own value of it, would be a sorry
recompense. Is this intelligible?"

"Far more intelligible than flattering," said I, laughing; for I saw
that the best mode to treat him was by an imitation of his own frank and
careless humor. "I have already risked that life you hold so cheaply, to
convey this information, but I am still ready to accept the conditions
you offer me, if, in the event of success, my name appear in the
dispatch."

He again stared at me with his dark and piercing eyes; but I stood the
glance with a calm conscience, and he seemed so to read it, for he said:

"Be it so. I will, meanwhile, test your prudence. Let nothing of this
interview transpire; not a word of it among the officers and comrades
you shall make acquaintance with. You shall serve on my own staff; go
now, and recruit your strength for a couple of days, and then report
yourself at head-quarters when ready for duty. Latrobe, look to the
Lieutenant Tiernay; see that he wants for nothing, and let him have a
horse and a uniform as soon as may be."

Captain Latrobe, the future General of Division, was then a young, gay
officer of about five-and-twenty, very good looking, and full of life
and spirits, a buo