e you as
comrades. England has always been the friend of Poland and more than
one of your countrymen has fought in the Polish ranks. As England is
at war at present with Russia, you will be doing as much service by
fighting her here as in the Crimea. Here, too, you will have the
satisfaction that you are fighting for an oppressed people struggling
for freedom against tremendous odds."

The lads asked for twelve hours before giving a final answer, and
then, having shared the Pole's rough meal, they chatted with him for a
long time upon the progress and chances of the insurrection. The
Polish leader told them that there were a score of bands like his own
in the forests; but he admitted that he saw but little hope of final
success unless Russia were completely crippled in the war with England
and France.

"But," he said, "we in Poland do not rise only when we consider
success possible. We take up arms when we are goaded to it. When some
act of Russian tyranny more gross and brutal than usual goads us to
desperation, we take up arms to kill and to die. You know not the
awful persecution to which we Poles are exposed. Whole villages are
destroyed, and the inhabitants banished to Siberia; our young men are
taken and compelled to serve in the Russian army. Scores are shot
down, after a mockery of a trial, on the pretence of discontent with
Russian rule. Women, ay, and ladies, are publicly flogged. Priests are
massacred, our churches closed, our very language proscribed. Death is
a thousand times preferable to the living torture we undergo, and when
we at last rise, it is vengeance and death that we seek rather than
with any thought of finally freeing Poland from her oppressors. And
now," he said, "you will excuse me if I suggest that we follow the
example of my comrades, and turn off to sleep. We have marched fifty
miles since yesterday evening, and shall be off before daybreak
to-morrow."

For half an hour after the Polish leader had rolled himself in his
cloak and gone off to sleep, the boys chatted together as to the
course they should adopt, and finally resolved to throw in their
fortunes with those of the Polish patriots. They saw that it would be
impossible for them to make their way on to the frontier alone, and
considered that their chance of life was no less if captured in action
by the Russians than if found in a village with a number of wounded
insurgents. The wrongs of Poland were in those days a subject which