nd presently
stepped inside--a girl.

"Malbrouk s'en va t'en guerre," said she, and nodded her head to him
humorously.

By this McGilveray knew that this was the maid that had got him into all
this trouble. At first he was inclined to say so, but she came nearer,
and one look of her black eyes changed all that.

"You've a way wid you, me darlin'," said McGilveray, not thinking that
she might understand.

"A leetla way of my own," she answered in broken English.

McGilveray started. "Where did you learn it?" he asked, for he had had
two surprises that night.

"Of my mother--at St. Malo," she replied. "She was half English--of
Jersey. You are a naughty boy," she added, with a little gurgle of
laughter in her throat. "You are not a good soldier to go a-chase of the
French girls 'cross of the river."

"Shure I am not a good soldier thin. Music's me game. An' the band of
Anstruther's rigimint's mine."

"You can play tunes on a drum?" she asked, mischievously.

"There's wan I'd play to the voice av you," he said, in his softest
brogue. "You'll be unloosin' me, darlin'?" he added.

She stooped to undo the shackles on his ankles. As she did so he leaned
over as if to kiss her. She threw back her head in disgust.

"You have been drink," she said, and she stopped her work of freeing
him.

"What'd wet your eye--no more," he answered. She stood up. "I will not,"
she said, pointing to the shackles, "if you drink some more--nevare some
more--nevare!"

"Divil a drop thin, darlin', till we fly our flag yander," pointing
towards where he supposed the town to be.

"Not till then?" she asked, with a merry little sneer. "Ver' well, it is
comme ca!" She held out her hand. Then she burst into a soft laugh, for
his hands were tied. "Let me kiss it," he said, bending forward.

"No, no, no," she said. "We will shake our hands after," and she
stooped, took off the shackles, and freed his arms.

"Now if you like," she said, and they shook hands as McGilveray stood up
and threw out his chest. But, try as he would to look important, she was
still an inch taller than he.

A few moments later they were hurrying quietly through the woods, to the
river. There was no speaking. There was only the escaping prisoner and
the gay-hearted girl speeding along in the night, the mumbling of the
quiet cascade in their ears, the shifting moon playing hide-and-seek
with the clouds. They came out on the bank a distance above where
McGilveray h