, and I will go to the
jetty, and return to you with news."

"No, monsieur," said Diana, "you shall not expose yourself alone; we
have been saved together; we will live or die together. Remy, your arm.
I am ready."

Each word which she pronounced had so irresistible an accent of
authority that no one thought of disputing it. Henri bowed, and walked
first.

It was more calm; the jetty formed, with the hill, a kind of bay, where
the water slept. All three got into the little boat, which was once more
launched among the wrecks and floating bodies. A quarter of an hour
after, they touched the jetty. They tied the chain of the boat to a
tree, landed once more, walked along the jetty for nearly an hour, and
then arrived at a number of Flemish huts, among which, in a place
planted with lime trees, were two or three hundred soldiers sitting
round a fire, above whom floated the French flag. Suddenly a sentinel,
placed about one hundred feet from the bivouac, cried, "Qui vive?"

"France," replied Du Bouchage. Then, turning to Diana, he said, "Now,
madame, you are saved. I recognize the standard of the gendarmes of
Aunis, a corps in which I have many friends."

At the cry of the sentinel and the answer of the comte several gendarmes
ran to meet the new comers, doubly welcome, in the midst of this
terrible disaster, as survivors and compatriots. Henri was soon
recognized; he was eagerly questioned, and recounted the miraculous
manner in which he and his companions had escaped death. Remy and Diana
had sat down silently in a corner; but Henri fetched them and made them
come to the fire, for both were still dripping with water.

"Madame," said he, "you will be respected here as in your own house. I
have taken the liberty of calling you one of my relations."

And without waiting for the thanks of those whose lives he had saved, he
went away to rejoin the officers.

The gendarmes of Aunis, of whom our fugitives were claiming
hospitality, had retired in good order after the defeat and the sauve
qui peut of the chiefs. Whereever there is similarity of position and
sentiment, and the habit of living together, it is common to find
unanimity in execution as well as in thought. It had been so that night
with the gendarmes of Aunis; for seeing their chiefs abandon them, they
agreed together to draw their ranks closer, instead of breaking them.
They therefore put their horses to the gallop, and, under the conduct of
one of the ensign