n the alert. It has been one of the rules of my life, and if I have
lived to wear grey hairs it is because I have observed it. And yet upon
that night I was as careless as a foolish young recruit who fears lest
he should be thought to be afraid. My pistols I had left behind in my
hurry. My sword was at my belt, but it is not always the most convenient
of weapons. I lay back in my seat in the gondola, lulled by the gentle
swish of the water and the steady creaking of the oar. Our way lay
through a network of narrow canals with high houses towering on either
side and a thin slit of star-spangled sky above us. Here and there, on
the bridges which spanned the canal, there was the dim glimmer of an oil
lamp, and sometimes there came a gleam from some niche where a candle
burned before the image of a saint. But save for this it was all black,
and one could only see the water by the white fringe which curled round
the long black nose of our boat. It was a place and a time for dreaming.
I thought of my own past life, of all the great deeds in which I had
been concerned, of the horses that I had handled, and of the women that
I had loved. Then I thought also of my dear mother, and I fancied her
joy when she heard the folk in the village talking about the fame of her
son. Of the Emperor also I thought, and of France, the dear fatherland,
the sunny France, mother of beautiful daughters and of gallant sons. My
heart glowed within me as I thought of how we had brought her colours
so many hundred leagues beyond her borders. To her greatness I would
dedicate my life. I placed my hand upon my heart as I swore it, and at
that instant the gondolier fell upon me from behind.

When I say that he fell upon me I do not mean merely that he attacked
me, but that he really did tumble upon me with all his weight. The
fellow stands behind you and above you as he rows, so that you can
neither see him nor can you in any way guard against such an assault.

One moment I had sat with my mind filled with sublime resolutions, the
next I was flattened out upon the bottom of the boat, the breath dashed
out of my body, and this monster pinning me down. I felt the fierce
pants of his hot breath upon the back of my neck. In an instant he had
torn away my sword, had slipped a sack over my head, and had tied a rope
firmly round the outside of it.

There I was at the bottom of the gondola as helpless as a trussed fowl.
I could not shout, I could not move; I wa