ightiness take me?"

"For a traitor, my good fellow--nay, no occasion to snatch at your knife
in that threatening fashion; it is dangerous, for I am a hasty man, and
apt to use these without much reflection," and I heard the click of a
pistol-lock. "I am sorry if I have wounded your delicate sense of
honour, but when a man sells his own countrymen for gold, one is a
little--just a trifle, you know--apt to be suspicious of him."

"A man _must_ live," responded the churlish voice. "I have a wife and
children to feed and clothe, and no man would employ me. If I have
turned traitor, it is because I have been driven to it."

"No doubt, no doubt," remarked the other speaker in a somewhat sarcastic
tone of voice. "The good Corsicans, your fellow-countrymen, have
perhaps been weak enough to allow your slightly singular cast of
countenance to prejudice them against you, eh? Well, I really cannot
blame them; you must yourself admit that it is the reverse of
prepossessing."

"I am as God made me," growled the traitorous Corsican.

"Say rather, as the devil and your own evil passions made you," retorted
the Frenchman. "Do not libel your Creator by attributing to Him any
share in the work of moulding a visage whereon the words `treachery,
avarice, theft, and murder' are printed in large capitals. You may
possibly have been born simply ugly, but your present hang-dog cast of
countenance is entirely your own handiwork, my good friend Guiseppe.
Now _pray_ do not fumble at your knife again, that is an excessively bad
habit which you have contracted; take my advice and break it off. If
you do not, it will assuredly get you into serious trouble some day."

The individual thus addressed muttered some inaudible reply, which
sounded, however, very much like an imprecation, to which his tormentor
responded with a gay laugh. Then I heard the door creak upon its
solitary hinge and scrape along the ground, as it was dragged open, and
the voice of the Frenchman said, addressing some one outside,--

"Well, Pierre, how are things in general looking by this time?"

"Much better, _mon sergent_" replied another voice. "The rain has
ceased, the clouds are dispersing, and yonder appears the first gleam of
daybreak."

"That is well," remarked the sergeant. "We will wait another half-hour,
by which time it will be light enough to see where we are going, and
then we must march once more."

The door creaked-to again; I heard a sound as