“But, at the moment when I thought myself most secure, I was in reality in the greatest peril.  The Loire had long since broken into the work, which had probably never seen a mason since the wars of the League.  I had made no calculation for this, and I had descended but a few steps, when I found my feet in water.  I went on, however, till it reached my sword-belt.  I then thought it time to pause; but just then, I heard a shout at the top of the passage—­on the other hand I felt that the tide was rushing in, and to stay where I was would be impossible.  The perplexity of that quarter of an hour would satisfy me for my whole life.  I pretend to no philosophy, and have never desired to die before my time.  But it was absolutely not so much the dread of finishing my career, as of the manner in which it must be finished there, which made the desperate anxiety of a struggle which I would not undergo again for the throne of the Mogul.  Still, even with the roar of the water on one side, and of the rabble on the other, I had some presentiment that I should yet live to hang some of my pursuers.  At all events I determined not to give my body to be torn to pieces by savages, and my name to be branded as a runaway and a poltron.”

A strong suffusion overspread the veteran’s face as he pronounced the words; he was evidently overcome by the possibility of the stigma.

“I have never spoken of this night before,” said he, “and I allude to it even now, merely to tell this English gentleman and his friends how groundless would be the conception that the soldiers and nobles of an unfortunate country made their escape, before they had both suffered and done a good deal.  My condition was probably not more trying than that of thousands less accustomed to meet difficulties than the officers of France:  and I can assure him, that no country is more capable of a bold endurance of evils, or a chivalric attachment to a cause.”

I gave my full belief to a proposition in which I had already full faith, and of which the brave and intelligent old man before me was so stately an example.

“But I must not detain you,” said he, “any longer with an adventure which had not the common merit of a Boulevard spectacle; for it ended in neither the blowing up of a castle, nor, as you may perceive, the fall of the principal performer.  As the tide rushed up through the works, I, of course receded, until at length I was caught sight of by the rabble.  They poured down, and were now within a hundred yards of me, while I could not move.  At that moment a strong light flashed along the cavern from the river, and I discovered for the first time that it too was not above a hundred yards from me.  I had been a good swimmer in early life:  I plunged in, soon reached the stream, and found that the light came from one of the boats that fish the Loire at night, and which had accidentally moored in front of my den.  I got on board; the fisherman carried