followed him. The Frenchman was the better swimmer of the two,
seized upon the recruiter, and bore him to the Strasburg side of the
stream, where he gave him up.

'You deserve to be shot,' said the general to him, 'for abandoning your
post and arms; but you merit reward for an act of courage and daring.
The King prefers to reward you,' and the man received money and
promotion.

As for Galgenstein, he declared his quality as a nobleman and a captain
in the Prussian service, and applications were made to Berlin to know if
his representations were true. But the King, though he employed men of
this stamp (officers to seduce the subjects of his allies) could not
acknowledge his own shame. Letters were written back from Berlin to
say that such a family existed in the kingdom, but that the person
representing himself to belong to it must be an impostor, for
every officer of the name was at his regiment and his post. It was
Galgenstein's death-warrant, and he was hanged as a spy in Strasburg.

'Turn him into the cart with the rest,' said he, as soon as I awoke
from my trance.

CHAPTER VI. THE CRIMP WAGGON--MILITARY EPISODES

The covered waggon to which I was ordered to march was standing, as I
have said, in the courtyard of the farm, with another dismal vehicle
of the same kind hard by it. Each was pretty well filled with a crew of
men, whom the atrocious crimp who had seized upon me, had enlisted under
the banners of the glorious Frederick; and I could see by the lanterns
of the sentinels, as they thrust me into the straw, a dozen dark figures
huddled together in the horrible moving prison where I was now to be
confined. A scream and a curse from my opposite neighbour showed me that
he was most likely wounded, as I myself was; and, during the whole of
the wretched night, the moans and sobs of the poor fellows in similar
captivity kept up a continual painful chorus, which effectually
prevented my getting any relief from my ills in sleep. At midnight
(as far as I could judge) the horses were put to the waggons, and the
creaking lumbering machines were put in motion. A couple of soldiers,
strongly armed, sat on the outer bench of the cart, and their grim faces
peered in with their lanterns every now and then through the canvas
curtains, that they might count the number of their prisoners. The
brutes were half-drunk, and were singing love and war songs, such as 'O
Gretchen mein Taubchen, mein Herzenstrompet, Mein Kanon