Galgenstein, after a little parley, passed the sentinel; but presently a panic took him, and he retraced his steps.  But the grenadier brought his bayonet to the Prussian’s breast and bade him stand:  that he was his prisoner.

The Prussian, however, seeing his danger, made a bound across the bridge and into the Rhine; whither, flinging aside his musket, the intrepid sentry followed him.  The Frenchman was the better swimmer of the two, seized upon the recruiter, and bore him to the Strasburg side of the stream, where he gave him up.

‘You deserve to be shot,’ said the general to him, ’for abandoning your post and arms; but you merit reward for an act of courage and daring.  The King prefers to reward you,’ and the man received money and promotion.

As for Galgenstein, he declared his quality as a nobleman and a captain in the Prussian service, and applications were made to Berlin to know if his representations were true.  But the King, though he employed men of this stamp (officers to seduce the subjects of his allies) could not acknowledge his own shame.  Letters were written back from Berlin to say that such a family existed in the kingdom, but that the person representing himself to belong to it must be an impostor, for every officer of the name was at his regiment and his post.  It was Galgenstein’s death-warrant, and he was hanged as a spy in Strasburg.

‘Turn him into the cart with the rest,’ said he, as soon as I awoke from my trance.

CHAPTER VI

THE CRIMP WAGGON—­MILITARY EPISODES

The covered waggon to which I was ordered to march was standing, as I have said, in the courtyard of the farm, with another dismal vehicle of the same kind hard by it.  Each was pretty well filled with a crew of men, whom the atrocious crimp who had seized upon me, had enlisted under the banners of the glorious Frederick; and I could see by the lanterns of the sentinels, as they thrust me into the straw, a dozen dark figures huddled together in the horrible moving prison where I was now to be confined.  A scream and a curse from my opposite neighbour showed me that he was most likely wounded, as I myself was; and, during the whole of the wretched night, the moans and sobs of the poor fellows in similar captivity kept up a continual painful chorus, which effectually prevented my getting any relief from my ills in sleep.  At midnight (as far as I could judge) the horses were put to the waggons, and the creaking lumbering machines were put in motion.  A couple of soldiers, strongly armed, sat on the outer bench of the cart, and their grim faces peered in with their lanterns every now and then through the canvas curtains, that they might count the number of their prisoners.  The brutes were half-drunk, and were singing love and war songs, such as ’O Gretchen mein Taubchen, mein Herzenstrompet, Mein Kanon, mein Heerpauk und meine Musket,’ ’Prinz Eugen der edle Ritter.’ and the like; their wild whoops and jodels making doleful discord with the groans of us captives within the waggons.  Many a time afterwards have I heard these ditties sung on the march, or in the barrack-room, or round the fires as we lay out at night.