heir store of tobacco that
the mate was requested to fill all the pipes, as some of the men in
helping themselves rammed their pipes so closely that they held double
the proper allowance of tobacco. This treat at once established Julian
as a popular character, and upon his lamenting, when talking to the
mate, his inability to speak French, the latter offered to teach him as
much as he could. Directly he began three or four of the younger sailors
asked to be allowed to listen, a school was established in one corner of
the room, and for several hours a day work went on, both master and
pupils finding that it greatly shortened the long weary hours of
idleness.

Three weeks passed without change. Then they were told that next morning
they would be marched away to make room for another batch of prisoners
that had been brought into the fort that afternoon. All were glad of the
change, first, because it was a change, and next, because they all
agreed they could not be worse off anywhere than they were at Nantes.
They were mustered at daybreak, formed up in fours, and with a guard of
twenty soldiers with loaded muskets marched out from the prison gates.
The first day's journey was a long one. Keeping along the north bank of
the Loire, they marched to Angers, which they did not reach until night
was falling. Many of the men, wholly unaccustomed to walking, were
completely worn out before they reached their destination, but as a
whole, with the exception of being somewhat footsore, they arrived in
fair condition. Julian marched by the side of the first mate, and the
lesson in French was a long one, and whiled away the hours on the road.

"It would not be difficult for us, if we were to pass the word down, to
fall suddenly on our guards and overpower them," the mate said in one of
the pauses of their talk. "A few of us might be shot, but as soon as we
had knocked some of them over and got their arms, we should easily make
an end of the rest. The difficulty would be what to do afterwards."

"That is a difficulty there is no getting over," Julian said. "With the
exception of yourself, there is not one who speaks French well."

"I don't speak it well," the mate said. "I know enough to get on with,
but the first person that I addressed would see at once that I was a
foreigner. No; we should all be in the same boat, and a very bad boat it
would be. We should all be hunted down in the course of twenty-four
hours, and I expect would b