eplied. "I'll do my best. I shall return to-night." And
I rose to take my leave, but he instantly raised his hand in protest.
"You are under arrest, monsieur," he declared quietly, with a shrug of
his shoulders.

I looked at him wide-eyed in astonishment.

"Arrest!" I gasped.

"Do not be alarmed," he replied. "It will only be temporary, I assure
you, but since you have so awkwardly stumbled among us there is no
alternative but for me to detain you until this _sacre_ affair is well
over. I cannot, at all events, let you return to the village to-night."

"But I give you my word of honour, monsieur," I declared, "I shall not
open my lips to a soul. Besides, I must dine at eight to-night with
Madame de Breville. Your excellency can well understand."

"I know you have friends, monsieur; they might be inquisitive; and
those friends have servants, and those servants have friends," was his
reply. "No, it is better that you stay. Pierre, give monsieur a carbine
and a place ten metres from your own at sundown; then report to me he is
there. Now you may go, monsieur."

Pierre touched me on the shoulder; then suddenly realizing I was under
orders and a prisoner, I straightened, saluted the brigadier, and
followed Pierre out of the fort with the best grace I could muster.

"Pierre!" I exclaimed hotly, as we stood again in the thicket. "How long
since you've held up anything here--contraband, I mean?"

For a moment he hesitated, then his voice sank to a whisper.

"They say it is all of twenty years, perhaps longer," he confessed. "But
to-night monsieur shall see. Monsieur is, of course, not exactly a
prisoner or he would now be in the third vault from the right."

"A prisoner! The devil I'm not? Didn't he tell me I was?" I exclaimed.

"_Mon Dieu!_ What will you have, monsieur?" returned Pierre excitedly,
under his breath. "It is the brigadier's orders. I was afraid monsieur
might reply to him in anger. Ah, _par exemple!_ Then monsieur would have
seen a wild bull. Oh, la! la! When the brigadier is furious----Ah,
_ca!_" And he led the way to my appointed ambush without another word.

Despite my indignation at being thus forced into the service and made a
prisoner to boot--however temporary it might be--I gradually began to
see the humour of the situation. It was very like a comic opera, I
thought, as I lay flat on the edge of the thicket and pried away a small
opening in the tangle through which I could look down upon the s