n.

Returning into the town, they went up some small streets, entered a
small eating-house, and asked for food, for the stock with which they
had started four days before had been exhausted the previous evening.
The landlord served them, and as they were eating he entered into
conversation with them.

"I suppose you have leave out of hospital for the day?"

"No," Dick said, "my comrade and I have got leave to go home to Poland
till our wounds are cured."

"Oh," the landlord said. "You are Poles. I thought you did not look
quite like our men; but you speak Russian well for Poles. There is a
regiment of your countrymen in the town now, and some of them come in
sometimes for a glass of brandy. They like it better than vodka;
curious, isn't it? Your true Russian thinks that there's nothing
better than vodka."

Rather disturbed at the intelligence that there was a Polish regiment
in the town, the boys hastened through their meal, and determined to
lay in a stock of bread and meat sufficient for some days'
consumption, and to leave Odessa at once. Just as they had finished,
however, the door opened, and a sergeant and two soldiers entered.

"Ah, my friend," the landlord said to the former. "I am glad to see
you. Are you come as usual for a glass of brandy? Real French stuff it
is, I promise you, though for my part I like vodka. Here are two of
your compatriots wounded; they have furlough to return home. Lucky
fellows, say I. There are thousands at Sebastopol would be glad to
change places with them, even at the cost of their wounds."

The sergeant strode to the table at which the lads were sitting, and,
drawing a chair up, held out his hands to them. "Good-day, comrades,"
he said in Polish. "So are you on your way home? Lucky fellows! I
would give my stripes to be in your place, if only for a fortnight."

Dick for a moment was stupefied, but Jack recalled to mind three
sentences which the countess had taught him and which might, she said,
prove of use to them, did they happen to come across any insurgent
bands in Poland; for vague reports were current, in spite of the
efforts of the authorities to repress them, that the Poles were
seizing the opportunity of their oppressors being engaged in war,
again to take up arms. The sentences were pass-words of a secret
association of which the countess's father had been a member, and
which were widely whispered among patriotic Poles. "The dawn will soon
be at hand. We must ge