fine women over there.'

'The women are beautiful.'

He said nothing, but for some time he squared his shoulders and puffed
out his chest, curling up the ends of his little yellow moustache.

'But they will escape in boats,' he muttered at last; and I could see
that he had still that picture of a little island in his imagination.
'If they could but see us they might remain. It has been said of the
Hussars of Bercheny that they can set a whole population running, the
women towards us, the men away. We are, as you have no doubt observed,
a very fine body of men, and the officers are the pick of the service,
though the seniors are hardly up to the same standard as the rest of
us.'

With all his self-confidence, this officer did not seem to me to be more
than my own age, so I asked him whether he had seen any service. His
moustache bristled with indignation at my question, and he looked me up
and down with a severe eye.

'I have had the good fortune to be present at nine battles, sir, and at
more than forty skirmishes,' said he. 'I have also fought a
considerable number of duels, and I can assure you that I am always
ready to meet anyone--even a civilian--who may wish to put me to the
proof.'

I assured him that he was very fortunate to be so young and yet to have
seen so much, upon which his ill-temper vanished as quickly as it came,
and he explained that he had served in the Hohenlinden campaign under
Moreau, as well as in Napoleon's passage of the Alps, and the campaign
of Marengo.

'When you have been with the army for a little time the name of Etienne
Gerard will not be so unfamiliar to you,' said he. 'I believe that I
may claim to be the hero of one or two little stories which the soldiers
love to tell about their camp fires. You will hear of my duel with the
six fencing masters, and you will be told how, single-handed, I charged
the Austrian Hussars of Graz and brought their silver kettledrum back
upon the crupper of my mare. I can assure you that it was not by
accident that I was present last night, but it was because Colonel
Lasalle was very anxious to be sure of any prisoners whom he might make.
As it turned out, however, I only had the one poor chicken-hearted
creature, whom I handed over to the provost-marshal.'

'And the other--Toussac?'

'Ah, he seems to have been a man of another breed. I could have asked
nothing better than to have had him at my sword-point. But he has
escaped. They ca