adness; and any
other plan would have required time, powerful friends, and a
knowledge of the city, and even then we should probably have failed
to get you out of prison. This being so, it was evident that the
best plan was to seize some of the citizens of importance, who
might serve as hostages. There was no difficulty in finding out,
from a small cultivator, who were the principal men living outside
the walls; and their capture was as easy a business. Scarcely a
blow was struck, and no lives lost, in capturing the whole of
them."

"But some of the men are missing," D'Arblay said.

"Yes; five of your men, I am sorry to say. On getting back to the
wood after dark I sent them, as you ordered, to fetch you from
Monsieur de Merouville's; but of course you had been captured
before that, and they fell into an ambush that was laid for them,
and were all killed."

"That is a bad business, Philip.

"Well, Monsieur de Merouville, will you go with us, or will you
trust in this safeguard?"

"In the first place, you have not given me a moment's opportunity
of thanking this gentleman; not only for having saved the lives of
my wife and myself, but for the forethought and consideration with
which he has, in the midst of his anxiety for you and Monsieur de
Laville, shown for us who were entire strangers to him.

"Be assured, Monsieur Fletcher, that we are deeply grateful. I hope
that some time in the future, should peace ever again be restored
to France, we may be able to meet you again, and express more
warmly the obligations we feel towards you."

Madame de Merouville added a few words of gratitude, and then
D'Arblay broke in with:

"De Merouville, you must settle at once whether to go with us, or
stay on the faith of this safeguard. We have no such protection
and, if we linger here, we shall be having half a dozen troops of
horse after us. You may be sure they will be sent off, as soon as
the president and his friends reach the city; and if we were caught
again, we should be in an even worse plight than before. Do you
talk it over with Madame and, while you are doing so, Francois and
I will drink a flask of wine, and eat anything we can find here;
for they forgot to give us breakfast before they sent us off, and
it is likely we shall not have another opportunity, for some
hours."

"What do you think, Monsieur Fletcher?" Monsieur de Merouville
said, after speaking for a few minutes with his wife; "will they
respect thi