long have you been on the road?"

"I have been eighteen days, sir. I could have ridden faster myself,
having a spare charger, but my orderly could hardly travel more
rapidly; and indeed, when I got to Magdeburg, and found that it was
not likely that there would be any engagement for some time, I
allowed the horses three days' rest, so that they should be fit for
service as soon as they arrived here."

A tent was at once erected in the staff lines for Fergus. He found,
upon inquiry, that the British division was at present at Muenster.
He was invited by the duke to dinner that evening, and was
introduced to the officers of the staff; who received him
courteously, but with some surprise that one so young should not
only bear the rank of major, but the coveted insignia of the Black
Eagle.

The duke, however, when the introductions were over, gave them a
short account of the newcomer's services, and after dinner begged
Fergus to tell them how he escaped from Linz; and they had a hearty
laugh over the manner in which he and his companions obtained their
first disguise.

"I have heard something of this," Colonel Zolwyn, the head of the
staff, said. "Captains Stauffen and Ritzer were both ordered here,
on their arrival at Berlin; and though I have not met them, I have
heard from others of their escape from Linz, which they ascribed
entirely to a major of Marshal Keith's staff, who was a fellow
prisoner of theirs."

For the next three weeks Fergus was on horseback from morning till
night. The movements of the troops were incessant. The two French
generals manoeuvred with great skill, giving no opportunity for the
Duke of Brunswick to strike a blow at either. Broglio, guided by a
treacherous peasant, captured Minden by surprise. Contades, with
thirty thousand men, had taken up an unassailable position: his
right wing on the Weser, and his left on impassable bogs and
quagmires, and with his front covered by the Bastau, a deep and
unfordable brook. Thirty thousand of his troops were occupied in
besieging Muenster and Osnabrueck, and other places, and succeeded
in capturing the latter, containing the duke's magazines of hay and
cavalry forage.

The duke's position became very grave, and the French believed
that, in a very short time, they would be masters of all Hanover.
Broglio's force of twenty thousand men was on the east side of the
Weser, and Ferdinand was unable to move to strike a blow at the
detached force of Cont