thousand crowns."

"No, no, nor for five thousand," the other laughed. "Pass me the wine;
it makes me shiver to think of it. I fancy we may as well admit at once
that if the mission had been entrusted to us, we should have made a mess
of it. We should have been shot by the guards in the first street we
entered. As to climbing along the roofs of houses till we had passed the
first line of sentinels, the idea would never have entered our heads.
Of course we might have disguised ourselves, and might have got into
the town by harnessing ourselves to a load of faggots, but once there we
should have had no more chance of getting into the fortress than if we
had at once proclaimed ourselves French officers, and had requested a
pass into the citadel."

For the next ten days every effort was made to obtain carts and pack
horses from the villages round Susa, and a number of wagons filled with
provisions were brought from Carignano, where the principal supplies for
the army had been collected. On the fourteenth day all was ready, and
late in the afternoon the convoy, with fifteen hundred men from Susa,
and four pieces of artillery, marched out. At the same hour the force
at Carignano, six thousand strong, leaving only a small body to garrison
the city, started for Turin along the farther bank of the Po, and just
as day broke a heavy cannonade was opened by them against one of the
city gates.

Astonished and alarmed, the troops in the city flew to arms, and hurried
to repulse the attack. A quarter of an hour later the dim light of
the morning showed the astonished sentries at the end of the town
surrounding the citadel a considerable force advancing to the attack of
the gate there, opposite which, at a distance of two hundred yards, four
cannon were placed, and scarcely had they made out the enemy when
these opened fire. A few rounds and the gate was in splinters, and the
infantry rushed forward. The sentries on the walls took to flight, and
the assailants pushed forward to the inner gate. Access was obtained
from that side to the citadel, and then, under the direction of their
officers, the assailants occupied all the side streets. At once the
procession of carts was allowed to pass along. Some of the garrison
ran down and lowered the drawbridge across the moat, and amid exultant
shouts a store sufficient for many months was conveyed into the citadel.
The carts as quickly as they were unloaded returned through the gates
and pas