of woods that were guarded
by very different men from the Swiss. The day that you wish to cross
over into France, I will undertake to get you there."

"That may be; but what shall we do in France without any arms?"

"Without arms? We will get them over yonder, by Jove!"

"You are forgetting the treaty," another soldier said; "we shall run the
risk of doing the Swiss an injury, if Manteuffel learns that they have
allowed prisoners to return to France."

"Come," said the captain, "those are all bad reasons. I mean to go and
kill some Prussians; that is all I care about. If you do not wish to do
as I do, well and good; only say so at once. I can quite well go by
myself; I do not require anybody's company."

Naturally we all protested and as it was quite impossible to make the
captain alter his mind, we felt obliged to promise to go with him. We
liked him too much to leave him in the lurch, as he never failed us in
any extremity; and so the expedition was decided on.

II

The Captain had a plan of his own, that he had been cogitating over for
some time. A man in that part of the country, whom he knew, was going to
lend him a cart, and six suits of peasants' clothes. We could hide under
some straw at the bottom of the wagon, and it would be loaded with
Gruyere cheese, which he was supposed to be going to sell in France. The
captain told the sentinels that he was taking two friends with him, to
protect his goods, in case any one should try to rob him, which did not
seem an extraordinary precaution. A Swiss officer seemed to look at the
wagon in a knowing manner, but that was in order to impress his
soldiers. In a word, neither officers nor men could make it out.

"Get on," the captain said to the horses, as he cracked his whip, while
our three men quietly smoked their pipes. I was half-suffocated in my
box, which only admitted the air through those holes in front, while at
the same time I was nearly frozen, for it was terribly cold.

"Get on," the captain said again, and the wagon loaded with Gruyere
cheese entered France.

The Prussian lines were very badly guarded, as the enemy trusted to the
watchfulness of the Swiss. The sergeant spoke North German, while our
captain spoke the bad German of the _Four Cantons_, and so they could
not understand each other; the sergeant, however, pretended to be very
intelligent, and in order to make us believe that he understood us, they
allowed us to continue our journey, and