"At the Port Maillot."
"Diable! there is no time to lose; but you are on horseback and I am on foot; how shall we manage that?"
"There is a way, captain."
"What is it?"
"It is that you should do me the honor of mounting behind me."
"Willingly, baron."
"I warn you, however," added the young cavalier, with a slight smile, "that my horse is rather spirited."
"Oh, I know him!" said the captain, drawing back a step, and looking at the beautiful animal with the eye of a connoisseur; "if I am not mistaken, he was bred between the mountains of Grenada and the Sierra Morena. I rode such a one at Almanza, and I have often made him lie down like a sheep when he wanted to carry me off at a gallop, only by pressing him with my knees."
"You reassure me. To horse then, captain."——"Here I am, baron."
And without using the stirrup, which the young cavalier left free for him, with a single bound the captain sprang on to the croup.