owever, till it reached my
sword-belt. I then thought it time to pause; but just then, I heard a
shout at the top of the passage--on the other hand I felt that the tide
was rushing in, and to stay where I was would be impossible. The
perplexity of that quarter of an hour would satisfy me for my whole
life. I pretend to no philosophy, and have never desired to die before
my time. But it was absolutely not so much the dread of finishing my
career, as of the manner in which it must be finished there, which made
the desperate anxiety of a struggle which I would not undergo again for
the throne of the Mogul. Still, even with the roar of the water on one
side, and of the rabble on the other, I had some presentiment that I
should yet live to hang some of my pursuers. At all events I determined
not to give my body to be torn to pieces by savages, and my name to be
branded as a runaway and a poltron."

A strong suffusion overspread the veteran's face as he pronounced the
words; he was evidently overcome by the possibility of the stigma.

"I have never spoken of this night before," said he, "and I allude to it
even now, merely to tell this English gentleman and his friends how
groundless would be the conception that the soldiers and nobles of an
unfortunate country made their escape, before they had both suffered and
done a good deal. My condition was probably not more trying than that of
thousands less accustomed to meet difficulties than the officers of
France: and I can assure him, that no country is more capable of a bold
endurance of evils, or a chivalric attachment to a cause."

I gave my full belief to a proposition in which I had already full
faith, and of which the brave and intelligent old man before me was so
stately an example.

"But I must not detain you," said he, "any longer with an adventure
which had not the common merit of a Boulevard spectacle; for it ended in
neither the blowing up of a castle, nor, as you may perceive, the fall
of the principal performer. As the tide rushed up through the works, I,
of course receded, until at length I was caught sight of by the rabble.
They poured down, and were now within a hundred yards of me, while I
could not move. At that moment a strong light flashed along the cavern
from the river, and I discovered for the first time that it too was not
above a hundred yards from me. I had been a good swimmer in early life:
I plunged in, soon reached the stream, and found that the l