id at Elchingen. I
stood in my stirrups to shout 'Vive l'Empereur!' and as I did so, there
came the answering roar from my hussars, 'Vive l'Empereur!' I sprang
from my rough bed, with the words still ringing in my ears, and then, as
I rubbed my eyes, and wondered if I were mad, the same cry came again,
five thousand voices in one long-drawn yell. I looked out from my screen
of brambles, and saw in the clear light of morning the very last thing
that I should either have expected or chosen.

It was Dartmoor Prison! There it stretched, grim and hideous, within a
furlong of me. Had I run on for a few more minutes in the dark, I should
have butted my shako against the wall. I was so taken aback at the
sight, that I could scarcely realize what had happened. Then it all
became clear to me, and I struck my head with my hands in my despair.
The wind had veered from north to south during the night, and I, keeping
my face always towards it, had run ten miles out and ten miles in,
winding up where I had started. When I thought of my hurry, my falls, my
mad rushing and jumping, all ending in this, it seemed so absurd, that
my grief changed suddenly to amusement, and I fell among the brambles,
and laughed, and laughed, until my sides were sore. Then I rolled myself
up in my cloak and considered seriously what I should do.

One lesson which I have learned in my roaming life, my friends, is
never to call anything a misfortune until you have seen the end of it.
Is not every hour a fresh point of view? In this case I soon perceived
that accident had done for me as much as the most profound cunning. My
guards naturally commenced their search from the place where I had taken
Sir Charles Meredith's coat, and from my hiding-place I could see them
hurrying along the road to that point. Not one of them ever dreamed that
I could have doubled back from there, and I lay quite undisturbed in the
little bush-covered cup at the summit of my knoll. The prisoners had, of
course, learned of my escape, and all day exultant yells, like that
which had aroused me in the morning, resounded over the moor, bearing a
welcome message of sympathy and companionship to my ears. How little did
they dream that on the top of that very mound, which they could see from
their windows, was lying the comrade whose escape they were celebrating?
As for me--I could look down upon this poor herd of idle warriors, as
they paced about the great exercise yard, or gathered in lit