ld.'

'A child ain't no such rarity in San Sebastian that anybody need
offer five pounds for one.'

'What's this talk about a child?' asked Sergeant Wilkes, coming in
from his rounds, and dropping to a seat by the blaze. He caught
sight of Corporal Sam standing a little way back, and nodded.

'Well, it seems that, barring this child, every soul in the house has
been killed. The place is pretty certain death to approach, and the
crittur, for all that's known, has been left without food for two
days and more. 'Tis a boy, I'm told--a small thing, not above four
at the most. Between whiles it runs to the window and looks out.
The sentries have seen it more'n a dozen times; and one told me he'd
a sight sooner look on a ghost.'

'Then why don't the Frenchies help?' some one demanded. 'There's a
plenty of 'em close by, in the convent.'

'The convent don't count. There's a garden between it and the
house, and on the convent side a blank wall--no windows at all, only
loopholes. Besides which, there's a whole block of buildings in full
blaze t'other side of the house, and the smoke of it drives across so
that 'tis only between whiles you can see the child at all. The odds
are, he'll be burnt alive or smothered before he starves outright;
and, I reckon, put one against the other, 'twill be the mercifuller
end.'

'Poor little beggar,' said the sergeant. 'But why don't the general
send in a white flag, and take him off?'

'A lot the governor would believe--and after what you and me have
seen these two days! A nice tenderhearted crew to tell him,
"If you please, we've come for a poor little three-year-old."
Why, he'd as lief as not believe we meant to _eat_ him.'

Sergeant Wilkes glanced up across the camp-fire to the spot where
Corporal Sam had been standing. But Corporal Sam had disappeared.

CHAPTER VI.

Although the hour was close upon midnight, and no moon showed,
Corporal Sam needed no lantern to light him through San Sebastian;
for a great part of the upper town still burned fiercely, and from
time to time a shell, soaring aloft from the mortar batteries across
the river, burst over the citadel or against the rocks where the
French yet clung, and each explosion flung a glare across the
heavens.

He had passed into the town unchallenged. The fatigue parties,
hunting by twos and threes among the ruins of the river-front for
corpses to burn or bury, doubtless supposed him to be about the same
bus