nd Army. Some said Murat, and some said
Lasalle, and some Ney; but for my own part, when they asked me, I merely
shrugged my shoulders and smiled. It would have seemed mere conceit if I
had answered that there was no man braver than Brigadier Gerard. At the
same time, facts are facts, and a man knows best what his own feelings
are. But there are other gifts besides bravery which are necessary for a
soldier, and one of them is that he should be a light sleeper. Now, from
my boyhood onwards, I have been hard to wake, and it was this which
brought me to ruin upon that night.

It may have been about two o'clock in the morning that I was suddenly
conscious of a feeling of suffocation. I tried to call out, but there
was something which prevented me from uttering a sound. I struggled to
rise, but I could only flounder like a hamstrung horse. I was strapped
at the ankles, strapped at the knees, and strapped again at the wrists.
Only my eyes were free to move, and there at the foot of my couch, by
the light of a Portuguese lamp, whom should I see but the Abbot and the
innkeeper!

The latter's heavy, white face had appeared to me when I looked upon it
the evening before to express nothing but stupidity and terror. Now, on
the contrary, every feature bespoke brutality and ferocity. Never have I
seen a more dreadful-looking villain. In his hand he held a long,
dull-coloured knife. The Abbot, on the other hand, was as polished and
as dignified as ever. His Capuchin gown had been thrown open, however,
and I saw beneath it a black, frogged coat, such as I have seen among
the English officers. As our eyes met he leaned over the wooden end of
the bed and laughed silently until it creaked again.

'You will, I am sure, excuse my mirth, my dear Colonel Gerard,' said he.
'The fact is, that the expression upon your face when you grasped the
situation was just a little funny. I have no doubt that you are an
excellent soldier, but I hardly think that you are fit to measure wits
with the Marshal Millefleurs, as your fellows have been good enough to
call me. You appear to have given me credit for singularly little
intelligence, which argues, if I may be allowed to say so, a want of
acuteness upon your own part. Indeed, with the single exception of my
thick-headed compatriot, the British dragoon, I have never met anyone
who was less competent to carry out such a mission.'

You can imagine how I felt and how I looked, as I listened to this
ins