urs, if you will assist."

"I will think of it," replied the gendarme, who then talked about
indifferent subjects, until we arrived at a small town called Acarchot,
when we proceeded to a cabaret. The usual curiosity passed over, we
were left alone, O'Brien telling the gendarme that he would expect his
reply that night or to-morrow morning. The gendarme said, to-morrow
morning. O'Brien requesting him to take charge of me, he called the
woman of the cabaret to show him a room; she showed him one or two,
which he refused, as not sufficiently safe for the prisoner. The woman
laughed at the idea, observing, "What had he to fear from a _pauvre
enfant_ like me?"

"Yet this _pauvre enfant_ escaped from Givet," replied O'Brien. "These
Englishmen are devils from their birth." The last room showed to
O'Brien suited him, and he chose it--the woman not presuming to
contradict a gendarme. As soon as they came down again, O'Brien ordered
me to bed, and went upstairs with me. He bolted the door, and pulling
me to the large chimney, we put our heads up, and whispered, that our
conversation should not be heard. "This man is not to be trusted," said
O'Brien, "and we must give him the slip. I know my way out of the inn,
and we must return the way we came, and then strike off in another
direction."

"But will he permit us?"

"Not if he can help it; but I shall soon find out his manoeuvres."

O'Brien then went and stopped the key-hole, by hanging his handkerchief
across it, and stripping himself of his gendarme uniform, put on his own
clothes; then stuffed the blankets and pillows into the gendarme's
dress, and laid it down on the outside of the bed, as if it were a man
sleeping in his clothes--indeed it was an admirable deception. He laid
his musket by the side of the image, and then did the same to my bed,
making it appear as if there was a person asleep in it of my size, and
putting my cap on the pillow. "Now, Peter, we'll see if he is watching
us. He will wait till he thinks we are asleep." The light still
remained in the room, and about an hour afterwards we heard a noise of
one treading on the stairs, upon which, as agreed, we crept under the
bed. The latch of our door was tried, and finding it open, which he did
not expect, the gendarme entered, and looking at both beds, went away.
"Now," said I, after the gendarme had gone down stairs, "O'Brien, ought
we not to escape?"

"I've been thinking of it, Peter, and I