all cavalry affairs should be. You will of course remember that
unpleasant affair of Wandenberg's troopers, who were accused of
permitting a French prisoner to escape. It caused a great excitement in
the British camp, where some condemned the dragoons, others Van
Wandenberg, and not a few our great Marlborough himself."

"I did hear something of it," said the stranger in a low voice.

"The prisoner whose escape was permitted was, I believe, the father of
the youths who captured him, a circumstance which might at least have
won them mercy--"

"From the Baron!"

"I forgot me--he was indeed merciless."

"But as I left his dragoons, and indeed the army about that time, I will
be glad to hear _your_ account of the affair."

"It is a very unpleasant story--the more so as I was somewhat concerned
in it myself," said the Major, slowly filling his long stemmed glass,
and watching the white worm in its stalk, so intently as he recalled all
the circumstances he was about to relate, that he did not observe the
face of the French gentleman, which was pale as death; and after a short
pause, he began as follows:

"In the onfall at Pont-a-Vendin, it happened that two young Frenchmen
who served as gentlemen volunteers with you in the dragoon regiment of
Van Wandenberg, had permitted--how, or why, I pretend not to say--the
escape of a certain prisoner of distinction. Some said he was no other
than M. le Mareschal Villars himself. They claimed a court martial, but
the old Baron, who was a savage-hearted Dutchman, insisted that they
should be given up unconditionally to his own mercy, and in an evil
moment of heedlessness or haste, Marlborough consented, and sent me (I
was his Aid-de-Camp) with a written order to that effect, addressed to
Colonel the Baron Van Wandenberg, whose regiment of horse I met _en
route_ for St. Venant, about nightfall on a cold and snowy evening in
the month of November.

"Snow covered the whole country, which was all a dead level, and a cold,
leaden-colored sky met the white horizon in one unbroken line, save
where the leafless poplars of some far-off village stood up, the
landmarks of the plain. In broad flakes the snow fell fast, and
directing their march by a distant spire, the Dutch troopers rode slowly
over the deepening fields. They were all muffled in dark blue cloaks, on
the capes of which the snow was freezing, while the breath of the men
and horses curled like steam in the thickening and darke