minutes without speaking. "There is
something in what you say, Campbell, and after this journey is over I
may be able to employ you in that way when it is necessary to obtain
information I can get in no other manner. Has he ridden with you
before?"

"Yes, sir, he has ridden behind me each time that I have been away since
I engaged him. When I say behind me, he starts behind me, but when out
of town I call him up beside me, and we talk, or rather try to talk,
in Italian--or rather I should say in Piedmontese, for he tells me that
each district of Italy has its own dialect, and that the natives of one
can scarce understand the other. I have bought a book printed here and a
dictionary, and of an evening when I have no duties to perform he comes
into my room, and translates sentence by sentence as I read it to him. I
learn it by heart, and hope that ere long I shall be able to make myself
understood in it."

"You do well--very well," the viscount said. "If all my young officers
were to do the same, instead of spending the evening and half the night
in drinking and gambling, things would go on much more smoothly, and
there would not be so many blunders in carrying out my orders. You will
greatly add to your usefulness by acquiring a knowledge of the language,
and it would certainly enable you to carry out with far less danger such
commissions as those you were just speaking of; for you might be asked a
question, and if it were replied to by your lackey, suspicions would be
at once aroused. You have ridden along this road before?"

"Several times, sir."

"Have you noted the features of the country--I mean from a military
point of view?"

"I have nothing else to do as I ride along, sir. As I go I notice where
an ambuscade might be laid, either by ourselves or an enemy, where we
might expect to be opposed on our march forward, or where a rear guard
might check an enemy were we retiring before him."

"Good! the fate of a battle depends in nine cases out of ten upon a
knowledge of the ground, and in quickness in utilizing that knowledge.
Our journey today is only taken for that purpose. I want to see for
myself the country across which we shall at first operate, to inspect
the various routes by which we might advance, or through which, if we
find the enemy in too great a force to be encountered, we should be
obliged to retire. As we go you shall point out to me the observations
that you have made, and I shall be able to j