t intervenes between waking and
sleep that a rustling sound of the branches behind attracted my attention.
The air was too calm to attribute this to the wind, so I listened for some
minutes; but sleep, too long deferred, was over-powerful, and my head sank
upon my grassy pillow, and I was soon sound asleep. How long I remained
thus, I know not; but I awoke suddenly. I fancied some one had shaken me
rudely by the shoulder; but yet all was tranquil. My men were sleeping
soundly as I saw them last. The fires were becoming low, and a gray streak
in the sky, as well as a sharp cold feeling of the air, betokened the
approach of day. Once more I heaped some dry branches together, and was
again about to stretch myself to rest, when I felt a hand upon my shoulder.
I turned quickly round, and by the imperfect light of the fire, saw the
figure of a man standing motionless beside me; his head was bare, and his
hair fell in long curls upon his shoulders; one hand was pressed upon his
bosom, and with the other he motioned me to silence. My first impression
was that our party were surprised by some French patrol; but as I looked
again, I recognized, to my amazement, that the individual before me was the
young French officer I had seen that morning a prisoner beside the Douro.

"How came you here?" said I, in a low voice, to him in French.

"Escaped; one of my own men threw himself between me and the sentry; I swam
the Douro, received a musket-ball through my arm, lost my shako, and here I
am!"

"You are aware you are again a prisoner?"

"If you desire it, of course I am," said he, in a voice full of feeling
that made my very heart creep. "I thought you were a party of Lorge's
Dragoons, scouring the country for forage; tracked you the entire day, and
have only now come up with you."

The poor fellow, who had neither eaten nor drunk since daybreak, wounded
and footsore, had accomplished twelve leagues of a march only once more to
fall into the hands of his enemies. His years could scarcely have numbered
nineteen; his countenance was singularly prepossessing; and though bleeding
and torn, with tattered uniform, and without a covering to his head, there
was no mistaking for a moment that he was of gentle blood. Noiselessly and
cautiously I made him sit down beside the fire, while I spread before him
the sparing remnant of my last night's supper, and shared my solitary
bottle of sherry with him.

From the moment he spoke, I never ente