ing at the moment, I was reprieved until an
opportunity could be found for verifying my statement. In the meantime,
however, my captors were kind enough to take charge of my watch, my
money, and one or two other valuables which they found in my pockets.

The bodies of the Frenchmen were rifled with a thoroughness and celerity
which I could not but admire, their pockets being turned inside-out, and
every article of the slightest value, including their weapons and
ammunition, appropriated. One individual especially, who was working
away with his back turned towards me, appeared to possess all the
coolness and dexterity of a London pick-pocket.

He was certainly not much troubled with squeamishness either; for while
operating upon the body of the sergeant, he discovered upon one of the
fingers a ring, which, being unable to remove, he without hesitation
drew his keen blade across the member, severing it from the body at a
single stroke; he then removed the ring, dropped it coolly into his
pouch, and jauntily jerked the dismembered finger in among the shrubs by
the roadside. Then, animated apparently by a sudden frenzy, he plunged
his blade again and again into the lifeless body, his fury increasing
with every stroke, until the uniform was slashed almost to rags,
finishing off by drawing his weapon across and across the face, until it
was mutilated beyond all possibility of recognition. He then rose to
his feet with a sigh of satisfaction, while the admiring laughter and
jocular remarks of his comrades evinced their high appreciation of the
performance.

Turning round, he faced me just in good time to catch on my features the
expression of sickening disgust with which I had viewed his actions. A
threatening scowl instantly overspread his repulsive features, and,
raising his knife, he advanced with such an evident intention of using
it upon me, that three or four of his companions interposed, and with
considerable difficulty at length succeeded in dissuading him from his
purpose.

It was the traitor Guiseppe.

The booty, such as it was, being secured, the party marched off the
ground, taking a contrary direction to that pursued by the Frenchmen. I
was placed in the centre of the band, the leader of which was kind
enough to warn me that any attempt at escape would be promptly met by an
effectual application of the knife. It thus appeared that I had only
escaped from one danger to fall into a second, almost, if not