r with all manner of small arms. A grimly silent
guard stood at either side, and I perceived the dark shadow of a third
still farther beyond, while the half-dozen cabins close at hand had
their doors tightly closed, and fastened with iron bars.

Instinctively I felt that here were confined those French prisoners,
the knowledge of whose exact whereabouts I sought amid such
surroundings of personal peril, and my heart bounded from sudden
excitement. In simulated awkwardness, I unfortunately overdid my part.
Shuffling forward, more eager than ever to keep at the heels of my
protector, yet with eyes wandering in search of any opening, my bare
feet struck against a projecting ring-bolt in the deck, and over I
went, striving vainly to regain my balance. Before that human statue
on guard could even lower his gun to repel boarders, my head struck him
soundly in the stomach, sending him crashing back against one of those
tightly closed doors. Tangled up with the surprised soldier, who
promptly clinched his unexpected antagonist, and, with shocking
profanity, strove to throttle me, I yet chanced to take note of the
number "18" painted upon the white wood just above us. Then the door
itself was hurled hastily open, and with fierce exclamation of rage a
gray-hooded Capuchin monk bounded forth like a rubber ball, and
instantly began kicking vigorously right and left at our struggling
figures. It gives me pleasure to record that the Spaniard, being on
top, received by far the worst of it, yet I might also bear testimony
to the vigor of the priest's legs, while we shared equally in the
volubility of his tongue.

"_Sacre_!" he screamed in French, punctuating each sentence with a
fresh blow. "Get away from here, you drunken, quarrelling brutes! Has
it come to this, that a respectable priest of Holy Church may not hold
private converse with the condemned without a brawl at the very door?
Mother of God! what meaneth the fracas? Where is the guard? Why don't
some of them jab their steel in the blasphemous ragamuffins who thus
make mock of the holy offices of religion? Take that, you black,
sprawling beast!"

He aimed a vicious stroke at my head, which I ducked in the nick of
time to permit of its landing with full force in my companion's ribs.
I heard him grunt in acknowledgment of its receipt.

"Where is the guard, I say! If they come not I will strangle the dogs
with my own consecrated hands to the glory of God. By the s