hended; and as he possessed an excellent constitution and good healing flesh, he was soon upon his legs again, and as ready for fun or fighting -that is, for fighting Frenchmen, not English naval officers-as ever.

Soon after his recovery he was presented by a French tradesman with a bill for goods, which he felt convinced he had previously paid; but as he could not then find the receipt and refused to pay a second time, the tradesman brought him before the prefect, who sent him to prison "till he should pay the debt." Truly that prison was a purgatory.

Imagine him now alone and melancholy, seated on the wooden bench of a French sponging-house, when he suddenly throws up his head, for a new thought has struck him, which gives a tinge to his pale and delicate face. The question which he put to himself was one which touched his honour as a British officer. It was this: "Does my arrest and imprisonment put me off my parole? Does the conduct of this tradesman and this prefect afford me the opportunity of escaping with unblemished honour?" A delicate question, no doubt; for it was not to the civil department of the state (to which the tradesman and prefect belonged) that he had pledged his word not to escape, but to the military. But if the military department allowed the civil department to over-ride it, and to confine a man in prison who had been placed on parole, what then? It was a very difficult question, and we can imagine men with a high and nice sense of honour taking opposite views on it. Lieutenant S. resolved to consult his friends, who agreed that his imprisonment rendered his liberty of parole null and void, and afforded him the opportunity of escaping with honour. This decision of his friends decided his movements.

But the questions remained, whither should he escape, and in what disguise? He finally resolved to bend his steps towards Rotterdam in Holland, where he hoped to meet with some English ship, and to try the disguise of a pedlar, with a good pack of wearing-apparel, which would afford him the opportunity, if necessary, of changing his disguise.

We are not informed as to the manner of his escape from the debtors' prison at Verdun, but he had no sooner left that place and entered on the high-road than he felt the difficulty and danger of his situation. He had a pedlar's pack, it is true, which would render him a welcome visitor in any village or town of France; but he had no passport, and, for want of this, was obliged to travel by night, and to betake himself to the woods by day. A few days after his flight he had some remarkable escapes from different bodies of gendarmes that were hovering around him. The pursuit through a wood was at one time so hot, that he had to adopt the apparel of a French peasant girl, having hidden his pack in a thicket. Repairing in this guise to an auberge, or inn, he asked for refreshment. While there, his pursuers entered the room in which he sat and inquired of the landlord concerning him, giving an exact description of his person.

Feeling that inns were dangerous places for those who desired to

avoid observation, he repaired to a retired cottage and begged a night's lodging. His request was granted. The family consisted of father, mother, two sons, and an only daughter. It was decided by the old people that "la fille intéressante" should have the half of the daughter's bed.

Here was a predicament for our handsome young lieutenant! What was he to do? To reveal his character to the family? This might have been dangerous. To reveal it to the daughter? This would have been indelicate. He managed somehow to preserve, as he imagined, his secret intact. During the day he worked with the family in the field, gleaning and binding up sheaves, for it was harvest-time; and during the night slept very soundly. As an Irishman would say, “he paid attintion to it." He remained with this kind and simple family for about a week, and then took his departure; but just before he left, the daughter informed him, with a sly smile, that she knew he was not what he seemed. We cannot imagine how she discovered it; but there can be no doubt that she was a very Ruth sleeping at the feet of Boaz junior.

He hastened from the cottage to his retreat in the wood, where he had left his bundle, and in doing so got a glimpse of a party of mounted gendarmes, the same party that had followed him to the village the week before. They seemed conscious that the fox was still "in cover," and had not "stole away," which he was now about to do.

Later, that same day, he ventured to peep out of his enclosure, bundle in hand, and saw a horseman approaching with a pillion-saddle. "Will you give me a lift?" inquired our fugitive, coming boldly out of the wood.

"Montez, mademoiselle," replied the horseman, assisting the lieutenant to the empty seat behind him. The horseman, who carried him in this fashion for about two leagues, informed him that he had met a troop of gendarmes, who were seeking an English officer that had escaped from Verdun. Edmund made no remark; but concluded that the party in pursuit, discovering themselves at fault, were, to use a coursing term, "trying back to find the game." Under these circumstances he felt himself comparatively safe.

The question now was, what should be his next disguise, for he determined to discard that of a female. It is true it had some advantages, and had saved him from the hands of the gendarmes; but gowns, bonnets, and petticoats have their peculiar dangers and temptations: he would have nothing more to do with them. He might have reassumed the disguise of a pedlar; but he suspected that the police were, by this time, aware of the profession or calling he had adopted in leaving Verdun. He decided on being a sailor en route for Rotterdam; and betook himself to a neighbouring wood to make his toilet. Here he discovered a deficiency in an important article of dress,-we believe he was minus a pair of blue nether garments,-which would never do in

going to the Netherlands; so he adopted the profession of a poor labourer, mounted a red wig, and ornamented his handsome face with a patch over one of his eyes. In this disguised condition he entered the city of Rotterdam, in the autumn of 1810.

It was his object to procure a speedy passage to England; a difficult matter to accomplish, as the war between France and England was then at its height, and Napoleon was doing his utmost to destroy the traffic between England and the Netherlands. He was compelled, under these circumstances, to make an arrangement with the captain of a smuggling vessel to land him on the English coast; but this scoundrel, instead of fulfilling his agreement, informed the police of his intentions, who forthwith arrested our poor lieutenant and put him in irons. A sad termination this of his long journey and hairbreadth escapes!

He was detained at Rotterdam till instructions were received of his destination; and in the interim the greatest precautions were taken to prevent his escape, a sentry being placed at his prison-door by day and night; for, by this time, our hero had acquired a little character for breaking prison, deceiving French police, and bamboozling gendarmes.

About three weeks from the period of his arrest at Rotterdam, an order arrived for his removal to the fortress of Bitche. He was placed under a strong escort of troopers, and commenced a miserable march, which lasted for upwards of six weeks, during which period he was subjected to the greatest cruelty and indignity, being, on some occasions, when scarcely able to walk, tied to the tail of one of their horses and dragged on. He was generally confined, during the night, in the gloomy cell of a prison in the town where the party halted. During the six weeks employed in this journey he was unable to change any part of his wearing-apparel-not even his shirt. His appearance, on entering Bitche, was that of a miserable beggar-ragged, filthy, and cadaverous. The dashing and handsome young Lieutenant S. was never so completely disguised as now.

On arriving at the fortress of Bitche, he was heavily ironed, and confined in a dungeon forty feet under ground. Here all dreams of prison-breaking were annihilated, and with them all hopes of liberty. He looked upon himself as a doomed man, and upon his damp cell as his sepulchre. It is not to be wondered at, that under such circumstances his frame should break down. He was seized with a violent fever, and for several days his life was despaired of. But after a time he rallied; and at the end of six months, and as the result of more humane treatment, recovered somewhat of his usual strength.

During this long period of convalescence he was frequently visited by a French officer stationed in the fortress, who seemed to take a deep interest in him. The officer, for the time in charge of the prison guard, had the privilege, under certain restrictions, of inviting a prisoner to his guard-room. The French officer referred to took advantage of this privilege-when it was his turn-to invite our hero. The result

of this intercourse was, that a lasting friendship sprung up between these two young men.

But friendship is one thing, and strict notions of military duty another. The French officer interfered, and interfered successfully, in having his friend's irons removed, and in having him located in better and more wholesome quarters than he had first occupied; but the question which S. put to himself over and over again-although he hesitated to put it to his friend-was, "Would he help me to escape ?"

The desire of escaping was again the master-passion of his soul. The hope which appeared to have died out in his damp cell forty feet beneath the surface of the earth, arose and plumed its wings when the light of heaven was let in, and the hand of friendship stretched out. Hope such as this is like a caged eagle, that will break its bars or its breast.

Lieutenant S. could contain himself no longer. He must put his friend to the test, and see of what material his friendship consisted. One day he put the question to him rather abruptly, "Will you help me to escape, for I am resolved to make the attempt?"

The reply was as decided as the question was abrupt: "I will aid you to the utmost of my power."

"True as steel," soliloquised our hero, grasping his friend's hand, and retiring to mature his plans.

"To break prison" in the fortress of Bitche seemed utterly impossible; and, if accomplished, to avoid detection after doing so, and escape from a place so guarded and surrounded by sentries, appeared as hopeless as it was hazardous. Some other means must be devised. After long and serious consultation, it was finally decided that the wisest mode of escape was, for the English officer to walk out of the fortress in a suit of French uniform. The attempt was made in the dusk of the evening, and succeeded.

"But where did he get the French uniform ?"

I must request that the reader will ask no impertinent questions. But I am given to understand that he found them in his cell.

It may appear strange, but it is not the less true, that Lieutenant S. should turn his steps in the direction of Verdun, where he had been so long a prisoner on parole, where he was so well known, and from which he had escaped in the guise of a pedlar. We must suppose he had good reasons for doing so. Perhaps he concluded that Verdun would be the very last place where the authorities would think of looking for him.

Early in the morning of the second day he arrived weary and footsore under the walls of Verdun, having performed the whole journey, a distance of thirty leagues, on foot. He had retired to a wood before approaching the town, in order to change his regimentals for the clothes of a peasant. Those frequent changes of apparel were well calculated to baffle his pursuers.

Before leaving Bitche he had arranged with a friend at Verdun to

meet him with a rope at an angle of the fortress of the latter place, which he described, to help him to climb the wall. When he arrived at daybreak at the place of rendezvous, there was no friend there. His friend had mistaken the point. Imagine him now, exhausted and hungry, hanging about the gates of Verdun for six-and-thirty hours, more anxious to get in than he formerly was to get out, comparing his quarters in the sponging-house with the ditch of the fortress outside. He can stand this state of things no longer; he must make a bold dash and get in, although he had no passport. A waggon with hay approached the gate. He took his place at its side, like a party in charge, and entered without inquiry. He was scarcely within the walls before he saw an old friend, Captain R., rushing up to salute him. Edmund S. placed his finger on the side of his nose and gave him the go-by.

He was hospitably received and entertained by an influential friend in Verdun, who had a private closet made for his security. This sanctuary was scarcely finished before the house was visited by the police in search of him. A large reward after this was offered for his apprehension, which kept the police, and all others who prey upon their kind, upon the qui vive.

Our hero felt that, under such circumstances, the shorter he made his stay in Verdun the better for himself and for his friends; so he forthwith procured a blank passport, and after applying himself for a few days with the most conscientious diligence to the practice of copying or imitating other men's autographs, he succeeded in producing a most respectable and veritable-looking passport, with the names of the prefects duly affixed or forged. With this document, a new suit of French regimentals, and money in his purse, he had no difficulty in leaving Verdun, as an officer about to join his regiment in Spain.

Our hero, whose destination was Bordeaux, in the south of France, took Paris in his route, where he remained and amused himself for about three weeks, during which time he assumed the garb of a civilian.

He travelled by a diligence from Paris to Bordeaux. In the diligence he met two French officers; and one of them, in course of conversation, asked him if he were a Frenchman. "No," replied our hero; "I'm a Dutchman, but I have lived a long time in France." The reply, as Edmund expected, "shut up" the Frenchman, who did not understand Dutch.

He was received most kindly and entertained most hospitably by a family at Bordeaux, who promised every assistance to facilitate his object. Here he remained two months without any feasible mode of escape presenting itself; when he resolved, like Cæsar, to commit himself and his fortunes to the sea, which he looked upon as a portion of the British dominions. He might probably fall in with one of the vessels of the English fleet which was hovering about the coast.

The city of Bordeaux, as the reader is aware, is situated on the river Garonne, which empties itself into the Bay of Biscay. Here, at Bor