men wearing a similar
uniform, their muskets being piled in the middle of the room; while,
apart from the rest, was a man standing with his back towards me, gazing
abstractedly out of the window. He was dressed in the ordinary Corsican
garb, and was leaning upon a long-barrelled musket, the butt of which
rested upon the floor, his hands being crossed upon the muzzle of the
barrel, and his chin resting upon them.

"Good morning!" said I in English to the sergeant, as I struggled to my
feet; "who are you, pray, and where have you come from?"

"Approach, most amiable Guiseppe, and lend us your valuable aid as
interpreter," said the sergeant, turning to the Corsican; "and see, my
friend, that you interpret correctly. What was it he said?"

The Corsican, whose brutal and sinister countenance fully justified the
sergeant's previous remarks upon it, translated my salutation into
excellent French.

"Tell him," said the sergeant, "that you saw him land, and overheard
sufficient of his conversation with his fellow-officer to satisfy you
that he is the bearer of despatches from the English to one of your
countrymen; that you betrayed him, and that I and my men were in
consequence sent out to scour the country in search of him. Tell him
also that, being found, he may make up his mind to be hanged before
sunset; or--no, do not say anything about the hanging at present, he
will know all about that soon enough, poor lad!"

The rascal translated this speech in a manner to suit himself; that is,
he said never a word concerning his own treachery, but to make up for
the omission he included that part which had reference to my probable
speedy fate.

Of course I had learned pretty much all this in the first conversation
between him and the sergeant; it was no news to me, but it terribly
confirmed the surmises which had suggested themselves to my mind when I
first became conscious that I was a prisoner. There was a single ray of
hope, it is true, to which I clung, but it was by no means bright. I
was evidently to be taken before his commanding officer, and I would
acquaint him with the fact of my being a British officer, and claim to
be treated as a prisoner of war. But then there was the ugly fact of my
being in plain clothes--how was that to be got over? There was of
course the shadow of a possibility that I might get out of my
difficulties, could I but fabricate a sufficiently ingenious string of
falsehoods; but now that it