f civil war. It is stand and deliver in
either case."

To my amazement Count Saxe actually laughed!

For my part, the picture conjured up of Francezka tramping wearily
through the fields and forests, in the company of cutthroats, her
tender feet aching and wounded, put all thoughts of laughter out of my
head. I was impatient only to be gone, and Count Saxe saw it.

Ten thousand crowns is a great sum of money, I think. It made a hole
in Count Saxe's military chest to pay it; but when was he ever
backward in handing out money when he had it, or could get it from
some one else? And the services of eleven men, when time was so
precious to us, could ill be spared; but Count Saxe took no note of
these things.

He talked a little longer with the Russian, who had a German name,
Schnelling. This Schnelling had the impudence to claim to be a part of
Bibikoff's force, and when Count Saxe asked him what he was doing
holding prisoners for ransom, the rascal replied that the money was to
be applied for a fund of defense against Count Saxe!

At this my master could not help laughing, and expressed himself as
being entirely at ease about a single crown of his money going to the
fund for driving him out of Courland.

On being asked, Schnelling told us his encampment, as he called it,
was three days' march from Uzmaiz.

Now Count Saxe was a good judge of whether a man was telling the truth
or not. He had enjoyed remarkable opportunities for more than a year
of studying the Courland vintage of lies--for every nation has its own
style of lies. A Frenchman lies not like a German. A Courlander
lies--however, it has been said that the devil and ninety-nine
Courlanders make a hundred liars.

Count Saxe replied to this last lie of Schnelling's by saying:

"You are a marvelous soldier, to travel three days without escort of
commissariat, for the village hen-roosts can not always be depended
on. I guarantee that your prisoners are not half a day's march from
here."

"Monsieur," said our bare-legged captain, in a tone and manner not
unworthy of Jacques Haret, "I take no offense at your calling me a
liar, by implication; in war, lies are stratagems. But your allusion
to village hen-roosts is exceedingly painful to a gentleman like
myself, who has danced at a court ball with the Duchess Anna Iwanowna.
However, passing that over, I will admit that we are just half a day's
march from here and looking for General Bibikoff every hour."

"