ncezka's clothes and Count Saxe's rescript we were ready to be
hanged, drowned, or shot.

Count Saxe meant to make leisurely for our rendezvous at Koenigsberg.
There was no need for rapid travel, as our three hundred and odd men
could not reach there for some days after us, as they had to make the
entire distance on foot. For ourselves, the presence of Mademoiselle
Capello necessarily delayed us, for although hardy for a woman, she
could by no means make a day's ride like old campaigners such as we
were.

Almost from the first hour of our journey Francezka began to importune
Count Saxe to get her a woman's saddle and let her resume her own
dress. To this Count Saxe soon agreed, Francezka pleading with wet
eyes and quivering lips, as if for her life. In truth, her disguise
was very incomplete; her long hair, her every look and motion betrayed
her sex.

When Francezka had carried this point her spirits rose. She dismounted
joyfully at the first roadside inn, and disappearing as a very pretty
boy, came out again, as Mademoiselle Capello, her rich locks curled
and plaited, and her beloved laced hat, which had cost her so many
tears, anxieties and palpitations, set upon her graceful head. Our
complications with regard to her would end as soon as we reached
Koenigsberg. Once there it would be easy to make suitable arrangements
for her, and until then she was the charge of us all, any one of whom
would have laid down his life for her.

Thanks to the smallness of our party, no one suspected who we were.
Count Saxe, from motives of prudence, gave himself out as Count
Moritz. The weather was sunny, although the September air was sharp,
but that only made our blood leap the faster. The roads were good, and
the country far from tedious. Our road led us for a time toward the
Baltic Sea, whose loud booming we could sometimes hear in the midnight
silences.

We were seven days upon the road to Koenigsberg. They were not the
unhappiest days of my life, for I was enabled to do something for
Francezka. She turned to me for help in many of those small needs of a
woman. It was agreed, when she resumed her own dress, that the best
thing to do was to say she was a young lady of rank, accidentally
separated from her family and going to meet them at Koenigsberg. This,
and the extreme respect with which we treated her, secured her from
the unpleasant comment of the vulgar. Beauvais always served her in
her room at the inns where we stoppe