Later, when another halt was made, a third company awaited them. A company of—were they prisoners? These were French faces, sullen and downcast, with French dress. Yet they too were coupled together by connecting chains. They too were under an escort of gendarmes.
"Are they convicts?" exclaimed Roy, and a ship-master replied, "Bless you, no, sir. These are conscripts for the Emperor's grand Army. Dragged from their homes, belike, without a will-he nor a nill-he, and driven to war, like sheep to the shambles."
"Poor wretches!" remarked Will, with his experienced air. "I've seen a lot of 'em before on our way across France."
"Sure enough, sir, and so have I. Times and again. Looking as sheepish and as down in the mouth as a man can. Don't make much wonder, neither, seeing they're dragged away from their homes, with never a chance of getting off. O they'll make smart soldiers enough, I'll be bound, and good food for shot too, with a few months of drill; and be as ready as any Frenchman of them all to rave about 'le petit Caporal.' And the mothers and the sweethearts may bear the parting as best they can, and the land may go uncultivated; and what does Boney care, so long as he has his way?"
The chained and dejected conscripts followed after the prisoners, when the march was resumed.
Day after day, week after week, it lasted. A hundred leagues were not to be quickly covered by a large number of men and boys of varying powers. Many of them, used to shipboard life, were unaccustomed to long tramps. There were tender feet and aching limbs among them; and matters grew steadily worse. Some broke down altogether, and had to be conveyed in rough springless carts. Those who had no money were fed mainly on black bread and water. At night, when they halted, they were put into the common prison of the place, no matter what kind of prison it might be. Often they were confined in the criminal cells, suffering miseries from heat and lack of air. Not seldom too their only couch was filthy straw, alive with insects. Weary as Roy might be, he could not sleep amid such surroundings.
He guarded carefully the money with which he had been abundantly supplied by his father, not allowing others to know that he had more than a purse of loose coins for immediate use. Impulsive Roy would hardly have been so reticent, but for parting injunctions. Like Ivor, he was naturally generous; and since the middies were ill supplied with cash, he gladly shared the contents of his purse with them.
At length the long march came to an end. Bitche was reached—a grim and solemn fortress, sheltering already hundreds of British prisoners. The fortress was built upon a rocky height, below which lay the small town.
Upward and upward the prisoners mounted, by a sharply zigzag way, passing one drawbridge after another, each strongly guarded. Roy and the middies were first taken to the "Petite Tête," so-called, where they underwent a severe searching. Roy's hidden supply of money was detected in this operation; and though he was not deprived of it, he knew that thenceforward the gendarmes would look upon him as their lawful prey.
He and the middies were then led through gloomy passages, down into the great dungeon. This, as well as the smaller dungeon, had been originally dug out of the solid saltpetre rock, being at least thirty feet below the surface of the ground. At first meant as a safe retreat for the garrison during a bombardment, they had of late been used as receptacles for English prisoners. The smaller cavern was in theory kept for officers, the larger for private soldiers and sailors "before the mast." But this rule was often and widely departed from, as Roy discovered; for he with the middies was conducted to the large souterrain.