, and I had rather go with my
Voltigeurs than remain to be an exile and a beggar. Besides, it is
quite certain that the Allies would have shot me, so I have saved myself
from that humiliation."

"The Allies, sir," said the Major, with some heat, "would be guilty of
no such barbarous action."

But de Lissac shook his head, with the same sad smile.

"You do not know, Major," said he. "Do you suppose that I should have
fled to Scotland and changed my name if I had not more to fear than my
comrades who remained in Paris? I was anxious to live, for I was sure
that my little man would come back. Now I had rather die, for he will
never lead an army again. But I have done things that could not be
forgiven. It was I that led the party which took and shot the Duc
d'Enghien. It was I--Ah, _mon Dieu!_ Edie, Edie, _ma cherie!_"

He threw out both his hands, with all the fingers feeling and quivering
in the air. Then he let them drop heavily in front of him, and his chin
fell forward upon his chest. One of our sergeants laid him gently down,
and the other stretched the big blue mantle over him; and so we left
those two whom Fate had so strangely brought together, the Scotchman and
the Frenchman, lying silently and peacefully within hand's touch of each
other, upon the blood-soaked hillside near Hougoumont.

CHAPTER XV.

THE END OF IT.

And now I have very nearly come to the end of it all, and precious glad
I shall be to find myself there; for I began this old memory with a
light heart, thinking that it would give me some work for the long
summer evenings, but as I went on I wakened a thousand sleeping sorrows
and half-forgotten griefs, and now my soul is all as raw as the hide of
an ill-sheared sheep. If I come safely out of it I will swear never to
set pen to paper again, for it is so easy at first, like walking into a
shelving stream, and then before you can look round you are off your
feet and down in a hole, and can struggle out as best you may.

We buried Jim and de Lissac with four hundred and thirty-one others of
the French Guards and our own Light Infantry in a single trench. Ah! if
you could sow a brave man as you sow a seed, there should be a fine crop
of heroes coming up there some day! Then we left that bloody
battle-field behind us for ever, and with our brigade we marched on over
the French border on our way to Paris.

I had always been brought up during all these years to look upon the
Fren