llowance was increased by two sols a
day. He showed them no letter, but the increase was paid regularly for
eight months; after which a new Commandant came, and it ceased. They
could never find out if the supply ceased, or into whose pocket it went
if it came.

From that time Bosistow had two things to brood upon--escape and Selina.
But confinement is the ruination of some natures, and as year after year
went by and his wits broke themselves on a stone wall, he grew into a
very different man from the handy lad the Johnnies had taken prisoner.
One thing he never gave up, and that was his pluck; and he had plenty of
use for it when, after seven years, his chance came.

His first contrivance was to change names with an old American in the
depot. It so happened that the captain of a French privateer had
applied to the prison for a crew of foreigners to man his ship, then
lying at Morlaix. The trick, by oiling the jailor's palm, was managed
easily enough, and away Bosistow was marched with twenty comrades of all
nations. But at the first stage some recruiting officers stopped them,
insisting that they were Irish and not Americans, and must be enlisted
to serve with Bonaparty's army in Spain. The prisoners to a man refused
to hear of it, and the end was they were marched back to prison in
disgrace, and, to cap everything, had their English allowance stopped on
pretence that they had been in the French service. Yet this brought him
a second chance, for being now declared an Irishman he managed to get
himself locked up with the Irish, who had their quarters on the handier
side of the prison; and that same night broke out of window with two
other fellows, got over the prison wall, and hid in the woods beyond.
But on the second day a party of wood-rangers attacked them with guns
and captured them; and back they went, and were condemned to six years
in irons.

This, as it turned out, didn't amount to much; for, while they were
waiting to be marched off to the galleys, their jailor came with news
that a son was born to the Emperor, and they were pardoned in honour of
it. But instead of putting them back in their old quarters, he fixed
them up for a fortnight in a room by themselves, being fearful that such
bad characters would contaminate the other prisoners. This room was an
upstairs one in a building on the edge of the ramparts, and after a few
nights they broke through the ceiling into an empty chamber, which had a
w