ltogether a pleasant
story to tell now; but I acted for the best, and under the belief that
there was no chance of my being able to return for years to England. The
story is too long for me to give you the details now, but I will give
you the broad facts. I was sent prisoner to Verdun. I was there about
ten months. There was fever in the place, and we died off like sheep.
There seemed no possibility of escape, and if I could have got away I
could not, as I thought, make for England. I was getting hopeless and
desperate, and I don't think I could have held out much longer. Then
there was an offer made to us that any of us who liked could obtain
freedom by enlisting in the French army. It was expressly stated that it
was going east, and that at the end of the campaign we should,--if our
corps was ordered to a place where it was likely to come in contact with
the English,--be allowed to exchange into a regiment with another
destination.

"Well, it seemed to me that it mattered very little what became of me.
Even should I be exchanged and sent to England I could not have stayed
there, but must have gone abroad to make my living as best I could, and
I thought I might as well go as a soldier to Russia as anywhere else; so
I accepted the offer, little knowing what would come of it. I regretted
it heartily when I saw the misery that was inflicted by the misconduct,
partly of the French, but much more of the Poles and Germans, on the
unfortunate inhabitants. However, there I was, and I did my duty to the
best of my power. When I tell you that I was in Ney's division, you may
imagine that I had my share of it all."

"Extraordinary!" Frank said, "to think that you and I should both have
been through this campaign, and on opposite sides. Why, we must have
been within musket shot of each other a score of times."

"I have no doubt I saw you," Julian said; "for I often made out a bit
of scarlet among the dark masses of the Russians, and thought that there
must be some English officers with them. The first time I noticed them
was on the heights opposite to Smolensk. Two officers in scarlet were
with the batteries they planted there and drove our own off the hill on
our side of the river."

"Those were the general and myself, Julian. We had only joined two days
before. But still, I am as much in the dark as ever. What you have said
explains how you come to be in Russia, but it does not at all explain
how you came to be here like thi