he had seen. He was like a man paralyzed--his mouth open,
his hand, with outspread fingers, raised in the air. For a moment my
inclination was to return and to embrace him. But already the call of
duty was sounding in my ears, and these English, in spite of all the
fraternity which exists among sportsmen, would certainly have made me
prisoner. There was no hope for my mission now, and I had done all that
I could do. I could see the lines of Massena's camp no very great
distance off, for, by a lucky chance, the chase had taken us in that
direction. I turned from the dead fox, saluted with my sabre, and
galloped away.

But they would not leave me so easily, these gallant huntsmen. I was
the fox now, and the chase swept bravely over the plain. It was only at
the moment when I started for the camp that they could have known that I
was a Frenchman, and now the whole swarm of them were at my heels.
We were within gunshot of our pickets before they would halt, and then
they stood in knots and would not go away, but shouted and waved their
hands at me. No, I will not think that it was in enmity. Rather would
I fancy that a glow of admiration filled their breasts, and that their
one desire was to embrace the stranger who had carried himself so
gallantly and well.

THE "SLAPPING SAL."

It was in the days when France's power was already broken upon the seas,
and when more of her three-deckers lay rotting in the Medway than were
to be found in Brest harbour. But her frigates and corvettes still
scoured the ocean, closely followed ever by those of her rival. At the
uttermost ends of the earth these dainty vessels, with sweet names of
girls or of flowers, mangled and shattered each other for the honour of
the four yards of bunting which flapped from the end of their gaffs.

It had blown hard in the night, but the wind had dropped with the
dawning, and now the rising sun tinted the fringe of the storm-wrack as
it dwindled into the west and glinted on the endless crests of the long,
green waves. To north and south and west lay a skyline which was
unbroken save by the spout of foam when two of the great Atlantic seas
dashed each other into spray. To the east was a rocky island, jutting
out into craggy points, with a few scattered clumps of palm trees and a
pennant of mist streaming out from the bare, conical hill which capped
it. A heavy surf beat upon the shore, and, at a safe distance from it,
the British 32-gu