such cases I leave my bridle loose and let my horse pick its own way.
Voltigeur went confidently forward, and I was very content to sit upon
his back and to peer about me, avoiding every light.

For three hours we advanced in this cautious way, until it seemed to
me that I must have left all danger behind me. I then pushed on more
briskly, for I wished to be in the rear of the whole army by daybreak.
There are many vineyards in these parts which in winter become open
plains, and a horseman finds few difficulties in his way.

But Massena had underrated the cunning of these English, for it appears
that there was not one line of defence but three, and it was the third,
which was the most formidable, through which I was at that instant
passing. As I rode, elated at my own success, a lantern flashed suddenly
before me, and I saw the glint of polished gun-barrels and the gleam of
a red coat.

"Who goes there?" cried a voice--such a voice! I swerved to the right
and rode like a madman, but a dozen squirts of fire came out of the
darkness, and the bullets whizzed all round my ears. That was no new
sound to me, my friends, though I will not talk like a foolish conscript
and say that I have ever liked it. But at least it had never kept me
from thinking clearly, and so I knew that there was nothing for it
but to gallop hard and try my luck elsewhere. I rode round the English
picket, and then, as I heard nothing more of them, I concluded rightly
that I had at last come through their defences.

For five miles I rode south, striking a tinder from time to time to look
at my pocket compass. And then in an instant--I feel the pang once more
as my memory brings back the moment--my horse, without a sob or staggers
fell stone-dead beneath me!

I had never known it, but one of the bullets from that infernal picket
had passed through his body. The gallant creature had never winced nor
weakened, but had gone while life was in him. One instant I was secure
on the swiftest, most graceful horse in Massena's army. The next he lay
upon his side, worth only the price of his hide, and I stood there that
most helpless, most ungainly of creatures, a dismounted Hussar. What
could I do with my boots, my spurs, my trailing sabre? I was far inside
the enemy's lines. How could I hope to get back again?

I am not ashamed to say that I, Etienne Gerard, sat upon my dead horse
and sank my face in my hands in my despair.

Already the first streaks were w