and detected it.

"Sit still, Driscoll," said he, smiling, "and let us talk this matter
over like men of sense and business. It's clear enough, my worthy
friend, that neither you nor I are rich men."

Driscoll sighed an assent.

"That, on the contrary, we are poor, struggling, hard-toiling fellows,
mortgaging the good talents Fortune has blessed us with to men who have
been born to inferior gifts but better opportunities."

Another sigh from Terry.

"You and I, as I have observed, have been deputed out here to play a
certain game. Let us be, therefore, not opponents, but partners. One
side only can win, let us both be at that side."

Again Terry sighed, but more faintly than before.

"Besides," said Classon, rising and turning his back to the fire, while
he stuck his hands in his pockets, "I'm an excellent colleague, and,
unless the world wrongs me, a most inveterate enemy."

"Will he live, do you think?" said Terry, with a gesture of his thumb to
indicate him of whom he spoke.

"No; impossible," said Classon, confidently; "he stands in the report
fatally wounded, and I have it confidentially that there's not a chance
for him."

"And his claim dies with him?"

"That's by no means so sure; at least, we'd be all the safer if we had
his papers, Master Driscoll."

"Ay!" said Driscoll, knowingly.

"Now, which of us is to do the job, Driscoll? That's the question. I
have my claim to see him, as chaplain to the--I 'm not sure of the name
of what branch of the service--we'll say the 'Irregular Contingent'
Legion. What are you, my respected friend?"

"A connection of the family, on the mother's side," said Terry, with a
leer.

"A connection of the family!" laughed out Classon. "Nothing better."

"But, after all," sighed Terry, despondingly, "there's another fellow
before us both,--that chap had brought out the news to the camp, Mr.
Reggis, from the house of Swindal and Reggis."

"He's cared for already," said Classon, with a grin.

"The Lord protect us! what do you mean?" exclaimed Driscoll, in terror.

"He wanted to find his way out here last night, so I bribed two
Chasseurs d'Afrique to guide him. They took him off outside the French
advance, and dropped him within five hundred yards of a Cossack picket,
so that the worthy practitioner is now snug in Sebastopol. In fact,
Driscoll, my boy, I 'm--as I said before--an ugly antagonist!"

Terry laughed an assent, but there was little enjoyment in his mirth.