o
pitch on us more than on the others; so that, in fact, the blame
will be divided between forty of us. You will, of course, put on
your disguises over your uniforms, and destroy your clothes, when
you get to Jules' house."

"I thank you very warmly, my good fellow, for running all this risk
for me. Here are two hundred francs to pay for the disguises."

"That will be more than enough," the soldier said. "Jules put it
down at a hundred and fifty."

"Things may cost more than he expects. At any rate, please hand
these to him. I can arrange matters with him when I see him.

"Then at about a quarter past twelve we will sally out. We will
walk on now, lest any of the warders should happen to notice that
we have been a long time on this part of the wall."

Ryan had understood but little of what was happening and, when
Terence told him what had been arranged, he exclaimed:

"Well, after this, Terence, I will never say a word against a
Frenchman. Here are these soldiers going to run a lot of risk, and
a certainty of getting into a row for us, merely because we did the
best we could against those wretched Spaniards; and without getting
any reward whatever, for they must know that prisoners are not
likely to have any money to spare about them."

"Quite so, Ryan; and what is more, if I had a hundred pounds in my
pocket, I would not offer them a penny; for certainly they would
take it as an insult if I did so. They would feel that it would be
a sort of bribe and, though they are ready to help us as comrades,
I am sure they would not do it for money. I sincerely hope they
won't get into any serious row. As he said, authorities won't be
able to tell which party was on guard at the time we went, and they
could hardly put the whole of them under arrest--at least, not keep
them under arrest. No doubt there will be a close search in the
town for us, but there is little fear of our being discovered.

"Our dangers won't begin until we are fairly afloat. I know nothing
about sailing. I have rowed a boat many a time, at Athlone; but as
for sailing, I have never once tried it."

"Nor have I," Ryan said. "But I suppose there is no difficulty
about it. You put up the sail, and you take hold of the rope at the
corner, and off you go."

"It sounds all right, Dicky, and I dare say we shall manage to get
along, somehow; but these things are not half as easy as they look.
Now we had better have four or five hours' sleep this afternoon,