equally,
as great. Had my captors been merely insurgents, I should not have felt
any very great anxiety; but, though I was not directly addressed, I
gathered within the first few minutes of our march that I had fallen
into the hands of a party of brigands, and from all that I had heard of
the unscrupulous character of these gentry, I believed that they would
not have the slightest hesitation about murdering me, it the whim seized
them, merely by way of "divarshin."

My left arm had been broken above the elbow by a musket-shot in the
fusillade which had destroyed the Frenchmen, and, dangling helplessly at
my side, gave me exquisite pain, as I stumbled along over the uneven and
slippery road. The injury was plainly perceptible, yet no one offered
to bind up the bleeding limb, and of course it was quite impossible for
me to do so myself. I might have requested one of my captors to perform
the service for me, but a scrutiny of their countenances afforded me so
little encouragement that I decided to suffer on, rather than place
myself in their rough and merciless hands.

On emerging from the wood, we turned off to the left, and, forsaking the
road altogether, made across the moor in the direction of another wood,
which entirely clothed the sides to the very summit of a high hill about
five miles distant. We were a couple of hours performing the journey
across the open moor, and another hour was occupied in threading our way
through the wood, the ground being very rugged and rising steeply all
the while. At length, however, we reached a wide open space along one
side of which a mountain-stream was noisily rushing "in spate," as they
say in Scotland; the surroundings of the place being very similar to
those of the spot where I had quenched my thirst, and bathed on the
previous evening--the principal difference being that here there was no
waterfall. Instead, however, of this being a picturesque solitude, it
had all the bustle and animation of a camp upon a small scale.

As we drew near the place, although there had been no visible sign of
the proximity of other human beings, signal-whistles had been given and
answered, and I was consequently in a measure prepared for the scene
which suddenly burst upon us on emerging into the open.

Some twenty or more bell-shaped tents were disposed in a circle on the
greensward, the little tri-coloured bannerets, which in some cases still
fluttered at their apex, seeming to indicat