, but there
is no occasion for you to make a special trip, and indeed my
employer forgot to give me an order upon you. I should have gone
back, if I had remembered it, but I thought you would not mind
giving me a passage the next time you sailed across.'

"As the man remembered that we had made ourselves pleasant on
board, he agreed at once to take me, next time the boat should be
going. I laid out a pound in getting a coat more suitable for
travelling in France than the peasant's smock. Then I took a
lodging in a small inn.

"Three days later, a messenger came down with an order for the man
to take him across at once, and as the captain charged me nothing
for my passage, I had enough left to pay for my place in a
diligence, and on arriving in Paris duly reported myself, at the
barracks, as having returned.

"My first enquiry, of course, was about you and O'Sullivan. I
found that he had never been heard of, but that you had lost a
hand, and had been promoted to a captaincy; had been very ill, and
had gone to the south of France on sick leave.

"After I heard that, I remained for two or three months at the
depot, and then learned that the Duke of Berwick had just arrived
from Dauphiny. I at once went to see him. He told me he could not
put me on his staff again, as his numbers were complete, but would
give me a letter to the Duke of Orleans, asking him to employ me
in that capacity. When I got down here, I found that the duke had
left, and that the Marshal de Bay was in command.

"On reading Berwick's letter, he at once appointed me one of his
aides-de-camp. You were away, I found to my great disappointment,
and I was sent off into Catalonia, with orders for four battalions
to be sent at once to Badajos. I arrived here yesterday, in time
for the shindy."

"Fortunately, O'Neil, I do not think there is much fear of another
Oudenarde. There is no royal duke here, to interfere with our
general; and the Portuguese are not to be compared with the
Hanoverians, and Dutch, and the other allies that fought against
us there."

"I hear, from the others, that you have been occupied in
reconnoitring the country."

"Yes, and I was captured, but was fortunately able to give them
the slip."

Desmond did not care to tell even his friend that his escape was
due to the kindness of the British general.

The next morning, Desmond was sent off to hurry up a body of
troops which was still some seven or eight marches away. The ne