the
road. And against my will I had to drop my cigarette and laugh aloud:
for the two guides were themselves unsteady, yet as desperately intent
upon the job as though they handled a chest of treasure. Now they would
prop him up and run him over a few yards of easy ground: anon, at a
sharp descent, one would clamber down ahead and catch the burden his
comrade lowered by the collar, with a subsidiary grip upon belt or
pantaloons. But to the Frenchman all smooth and rugged came alike: his
legs sprawled impartially: and once, having floundered on top of the
leading Samaritan with a shock which rolled the pair to the very verge
of a precipice, he recovered himself, and sat up in an attitude which,
at half a mile's distance, was eloquent of tipsy reproach. In short,
when the procession had filed past the edge of my tent-flap, I crawled
out to watch: and then it occurred to me as worth a lazy man's while to
cross the Zapardiel by the pontoon bridge below and head these comedians
off upon the highroad. They promised to repay a closer view.

So I did; gained the road, and, seating myself beside it, hailed them as
they came.

"My friend," said I to the leading grenadier, "you are taking a deal of
trouble with your prisoner."

The grenadier stared at his comrade, and his comrade at him. As if by
signal they mopped their brows with their coat-sleeves. The Frenchman
sat down on the road without more ado.

"Prisoner?" mumbled the first grenadier.

"Ay," said I. "Who is he? He doesn't look like a general of brigade."

"Devil take me if _I_ know. Who will he be, Bill?"

Bill stared at the Frenchman blankly, and rooted him out of the dust
with his toe. "I wonder, now! 'Picked him up, somewheres--Get up, you
little pig, and carry your liquor like a gentleman. It was Mike
intojuced him."

"I did not," said Mike.

"Very well, then, ye did not. I must have come by him some other way."

"It was yourself tripped over him in the cellar, up yandhar." He broke
off and eyed me, meditating a sudden thought. "It seems mighty queer,
that--speaking of a cellar as 'up yandhar.' Now a cellar, by rights,
should be in the ground, under your fut."

"And so it is," argued Bill; "slap in the bowels of it."

"Ah, be quiet wid your bowels! As I was saying, sor, Bill tripped
over the little fellow: and the next I knew he was crying to be tuk home
to camp, and Bill swearing to do it if it cost him his stripes.
And that is wher