Punch sturdily. "I sha'n't go."

"You must, I tell you."

"I don't care; I ain't going to leave you."

"Do you want me to starve, or perish with cold in the night."

"Course I don't!"

"Then do as I tell you."

"But suppose the French come?"

"Well, if they do we must chance it; but if you are careful in going and
coming I don't think they will find me; and I don't suppose you will be
long."

"That I won't," cried the boy confidently. "Here goes, then--I am to do
it?"

"Yes."

"Then here's off."

"No, don't do that," cried Pen.

"Why not? Hadn't I better take the muskets?"

"No. You are more likely to get help for me if you go without arms;
and, besides, Punch," added Pen, with a faint smile, "I might want the
muskets to defend myself against the wolves."

"All right," replied the boy, replacing the two clumsy French pieces by
his comrade's side. "Keep up your spirits, old chap; I won't be long."

The next minute the boy had plunged into the thicket-like outskirts of
the forest, where he stopped short to look back and mentally mark the
great chestnut-tree.

"I shall know that," he said, "from ever so far off. It is easy to
'member by the trunk, which goes up twisted like a screw. Now then,
which way had I better go?"

Punch had a look round as far as the density of the foliage would allow
him, and then gave his head a scratch.

"Oh dear!" he muttered, "who's to know which way to go? It's regular
blind-man's buff. How many horses has your father got? Shut your eyes,
comrade. Now then. Three! What colour? Black, white, and grey. Turn
round three times and catch who you may."

The boy, with his eyes tightly closed and his arms spread out on either
side, turned round the three times of the game, and then opened his eyes
and strode right away.

"There can't be no better way than chancing it," he said. "But hold
hard! Where's my tree?"

He was standing close to a beautifully shaped ilex, and for a few
moments he could not make out the great spiral-barked chestnut, till,
just as he began to fancy that he had lost his way at once, he caught
sight of its glossy bronzed leaves behind the greyish green ilex.

"That's all right," he said. "Now then, here's luck."

It was a bitter fight with grim giant despair as the boy tramped on, and
time after time, faint with hunger, suffering from misery, he was about
to throw himself down upon the earth, utterly broken in spirit, but he
fough