This was the last time I ventured on shore at night, except to go once with a party of our officers to the house of the Spanish admiral, who had a very pretty niece, and was liberale enough not to frown on us poor heretics.  She was indeed a pretty creature:  her lovely black eyes, long eyelashes, and raven hair, betrayed a symptom of Moorish blood, at the same time that her ancient family-name and high good-breeding gave her the envied appellation of Vieja Christiana.

This fair creature was pleased to bestow a furtive glance of approbation on my youthful form and handsome dress.  My vanity was tickled.  I spoke French to her:  she understood it imperfectly, and pretended to know still less of it, from the hatred borne by all the Spaniards at that time to the French nation.

We improved our time, however, which was but short; and, before we parted, perfectly understood each other.  I thought I could be contented to give up everything, and reside with her in the wilds of Spain.

The time of our departure came, and I was torn away from my Rosaritta, not without the suspicions of my captain and shipmates that I had been a too highly favoured youth.  This was not true.  I loved the dear angel, but never had wronged her; and I went to sea in a mood which I sometimes thought might end in an act of desperation:  but salt water is an admirable specific against love, at least against such love as that was.

We joined the admiral off Toulon, and were ordered by him to cruise between Perpignan and Marseilles.  We parted from the fleet on the following day, and kept the coast in a continued state of alarm.  Not a vessel dared to show her nose out of port:  we had her if she did.  Batteries we laughed at, and either silenced them with our long eighteen-pounders, or landed and blew them up.

In one of these little skirmishes I had very nearly been taken, and should, in that case, have missed all the honour, and glory, and hairbreadth escapes which will be found related in the following pages.  I should either have been sabred in mere retaliation, or marched off to Verdun for the remaining six years of the war.

We had landed to storm and blow up a battery, for which purpose we carried with us a bag of powder, and a train of canvas.  Everything went on prosperously.  We came to a canal which it was necessary to cross, and the best swimmers were selected to convey the powder over without wetting it.  I was one of them.  I took off my shoes and stockings to save them; and, after we had taken the battery, I was so intent on looking for the telegraphic signal-box, that I had quite forgotten the intended explosion, until I heard a cry of “Run, run!” from those outside who had lighted the train.

I was at that moment on the wall of the fort, nearly thirty feet high, but sloping.  I jumped one part, and scrambled the other, and ran away as fast as I could, amidst a shower of stones, which fell around me like an eruption of Vesuvius.  Luckily I was not hit, but I had cut my foot in the leap, and was in much pain.  I had two fields of stubble to pass, and my shoes and stockings were on the other side of the canal—­the sharp straw entered the wound, and almost drove me mad, and I was tempted to sit down and resign myself to my fate.