rty years, when I think of it.

To be trussed like a fowl and to listen helplessly to the rude laughter
of these boors--to know, too, that my mission had come to an ignominious
and even ridiculous end--I would have blessed the man who would have
sent a bullet through the cask and freed me from my misery.

I heard the crashing of the barrels as they hurled them off the waggon,
and then a couple of bearded faces and the muzzles of two guns looked in
at me. They seized me by the sleeves of my coat, and they dragged me
out into the daylight. A strange figure I must have looked as I stood
blinking and gaping in the blinding sunlight.

My body was bent like a cripple's, for I could not straighten my stiff
joints, and half my coat was as red as an English soldier's from the
lees in which I had lain.

They laughed and laughed, these dogs, and as I tried to express by my
bearing and gestures the contempt in which I held them their laughter
grew all the louder. But even in these hard circumstances I bore myself
like the man I am, and as I cast my eye slowly round I did not find that
any of the laughers were very ready to face it.

That one glance round was enough to tell me exactly how I was situated.
I had been betrayed by these peasants into the hands of an outpost of
guerillas. There were eight of them, savage-looking, hairy creatures,
with cotton handkerchiefs under their sombreros, and many-buttoned
jackets with coloured sashes round the waist.

Each had a gun and one or two pistols stuck in his girdle.

The leader, a great, bearded ruffian, held his gun against my ear while
the others searched my pockets, taking from me my overcoat, my pistol,
my glass, my sword, and, worst of all, my flint and steel and tinder.
Come what might, I was ruined, for I had no longer the means of lighting
the beacon even if I should reach it.

Eight of them, my friends, with three peasants, and I unarmed! Was
Etienne Gerard in despair? Did he lose his wits? Ah, you know me too
well; but they did not know me yet, these dogs of brigands. Never have
I made so supreme and astounding an effort as at this very instant when
all seemed lost. Yet you might guess many times before you would hit
upon the device by which I escaped them. Listen and I will tell you.

They had dragged me from the waggon when they searched me, and I stood,
still twisted and warped, in the midst of them. But the stiffness was
wearing off, and already my mind was very ac