," cried the
Frenchman.

In about five days, the privateer, with her rich prize, entered Brest
harbour. The prisoners were treated on landing with very scant
ceremony, and were thrust into the common prison--the officers in one
small room and the men in another. In those days the amenities of
warfare were little attended to. It was all rough, bloody, desperate,
cruel work. In truth, it is seldom otherwise. The prisoners were not
kept long at Brest, but one fine morning in spring, after a not over
luxurious breakfast of black bread, salt fish, and thin coffee, were
mustered outside the prison to begin their march into the interior. The
midshipmen kept together and amused themselves by singing, joking, and
telling stories, keeping up their spirits as well as they could. Their
guards were rough, unfeeling fellows, who paid no attention to their
comforts, but made them trudge on in rain or sunshine, sometimes
bespattered with mud, and at others covered with dust, parched with
thirst, and ready to drop from the heat. The country people, however,
looked on them with compassion, and many a glass of wine, a cup of
coffee, and a handful of fruits and cakes, were offered to them as they
passed through the villages on their road.

"Och, if some of those pretty little villagers who are so kind with
their cakes would just increase their compassion and help us to get out
of the claws of these ugly blackguards, I'd be grateful to them from the
bottom of my soul to the end of my days," said O'Grady to Paul, as they
approached a hamlet in a hilly, thickly-wooded part of the country.

It was in the afternoon, and, although they generally marched on much
later, to their surprise, the captain of their guard, for some reason
best known to himself, called a halt. Instead of being placed in
prison, as there was none in the village, they were billeted about in
different houses, with one or two guards over each. Paul and O'Grady
found themselves, together with Reuben Cole and two other men, in a neat
house on the borders of the village. They were the first disposed of,
so that where their companions were lodged they could not tell. The
people of the house did not appear to regard their guards with friendly
eyes, so that they concluded that they were not attached to the present
order of things.

"See that you render them up safe to us to-morrow morning," said the
captain to an old gentleman, who appeared to be the master of the h