deep importance.'

I said these words slowly and deliberately, and giving them all the
impressiveness I was able.

'Come this way, friend,' said he, and, assisting me to arise, he led me
a short distance off, and desired me to sit down on the steps in front
of the altar railing. 'Now, you may speak freely. I am the General
Massena, and I have only to say, that if you really have intelligence of
any value for me, you shall be liberally rewarded; but if you have not,
and if the pretence be merely an effort to impose on one whose cares
and anxieties are already hard to bear, it would be better that you had
perished on sea than tried to attempt it.'

There was a stern severity in the way he said this, which for a moment
or two actually overpowered me. It was quite clear that he looked for
some positive fact, some direct piece of information on which he might
implicitly rely; and here was I now with nothing save the gossip of some
English lieutenants, the idle talk of inexperienced young officers.
I was silent. From the bottom of my heart I wished that I had never
reached the shore, to stand in a position of such humiliation as this.

'So, then, my caution was not unneeded,' said the general, as he bent
his heavy brows upon me. 'Now, sir, there is but one amende you can make
for this; tell me frankly, have others sent you on this errand, or is
the scheme entirely of your own devising? Is this an English plot, or is
there a Bourbon element in it?'

'Neither one nor the other,' said I boldly, for indignation at last gave
me courage. 'I hazarded my life to tell you what I overheard among the
officers of the fleet yonder; you may hold their judgment cheap; you may
not think their counsels worth the pains of listening to; but I could
form no opinion of this, and only thought if these tidings could reach
you, you might profit by them.'

'And what are they?' asked he bluntly.

'They said that your force was wasting away by famine and disease; that
your supplies could not hold out above a fortnight; that your granaries
were empty, and your hospitals filled.'

'They scarcely wanted the gift of second-sight to see this,' said he
bitterly. 'A garrison in close siege for four months may be suspected of
as much.'

'Yes; but they said that as Soult's force fell back upon the city, your
position would be rendered worse.'

'Fell back from where?' asked he, with a searching look at me.

'As I understood, from the Apennines,' rep