y setting
the tree on fire. That thought saved our lives as well as your own,
for our fate would have been the same as those unfortunate
travellers, whose horses you saw, and who brought the wolves upon
you.

"And now, sir, would it be impertinent to ask for what purpose you
have come to Poland? Believe me, I only put the question in order
to see if I can in any way be of assistance to you."

"I do not know, count, whether my avowal will affect you
unfavourably, but I know that it will make no difference in your
conduct towards me. I am, as my servant told you, an Englishman by
birth; but I and my father were obliged, in consequence of
political opinions, to leave the country, and I am now a captain in
the service of Charles of Sweden."

Exclamations of surprise broke from his hearers.

"Well, sir," the count said, smiling, "as his majesty King Charles,
although not yet one-and-twenty, is one of the greatest generals in
Europe, I cannot consider it strange that you, who appear to me to
be no older, should be a captain in his service. But I own that I
pictured, to myself, that the officers of these wonderful soldiers
were fierce-looking men, regular iron veterans."

"I am but eighteen," Charlie said, "and I myself feel it absurd
that I should be a captain. It is but two years since I was
appointed an ensign, and the king happening to be with my company,
when we had a sharp fight with the Russians, he rewarded us by
having us made into a regiment; so each of us got promotion. I was
appointed captain last May, as a reward for a suggestion that
turned out useful."

"May I ask what it was, Captain Carstairs, for it seems to me that
you are full of happy ideas?"

"King Charles, as you may have heard, speaks freely to officers and
soldiers as he moves about the camp. I was standing on the edge of
the river, looking across at the Saxons, on the day before we made
the passage, when the king came up and spoke to me. He said there
was no hope of our passage being covered--as our advance against
the Russians at Narva had been--by a snowstorm; and I said that, as
the wind was at our backs, if we were to set fire to the great
straw stacks the smoke would hide our movements from the Saxons.
The idea was a very simple one, and would no doubt have occurred to
the king himself; however, he put it into execution with success,
and was good enough, afterwards, to promote me to the rank of
captain."

"So it was owing to you that