It was during that half-dreamy state that intervenes between waking and sleep that a rustling sound of the branches behind attracted my attention. The air was too calm to attribute this to the wind, so I listened for some minutes; but sleep, too long deferred, was over-powerful, and my head sank upon my grassy pillow, and I was soon sound asleep. How long I remained thus, I know not; but I awoke suddenly. I fancied some one had shaken me rudely by the shoulder; but yet all was tranquil. My men were sleeping soundly as I saw them last. The fires were becoming low, and a gray streak in the sky, as well as a sharp cold feeling of the air, betokened the approach of day. Once more I heaped some dry branches together, and was again about to stretch myself to rest, when I felt a hand upon my shoulder. I turned quickly round, and by the imperfect light of the fire, saw the figure of a man standing motionless beside me; his head was bare, and his hair fell in long curls upon his shoulders; one hand was pressed upon his bosom, and with the other he motioned me to silence. My first impression was that our party were surprised by some French patrol; but as I looked again, I recognized, to my amazement, that the individual before me was the young French officer I had seen that morning a prisoner beside the Douro.
“How came you here?” said I, in a low voice, to him in French.
“Escaped; one of my own men threw himself between me and the sentry; I swam the Douro, received a musket-ball through my arm, lost my shako, and here I am!”
“You are aware you are again a prisoner?”
“If you desire it, of course I am,” said he, in a voice full of feeling that made my very heart creep. “I thought you were a party of Lorge’s Dragoons, scouring the country for forage; tracked you the entire day, and have only now come up with you.”
The poor fellow, who had neither eaten nor drunk since daybreak, wounded and footsore, had accomplished twelve leagues of a march only once more to fall into the hands of his enemies. His years could scarcely have numbered nineteen; his countenance was singularly prepossessing; and though bleeding and torn, with tattered uniform, and without a covering to his head, there was no mistaking for a moment that he was of gentle blood. Noiselessly and cautiously I made him sit down beside the fire, while I spread before him the sparing remnant of my last night’s supper, and shared my solitary bottle of sherry with him.
From the moment he spoke, I never entertained a thought of making him a prisoner; but as I knew not how far I was culpable in permitting, if not actually facilitating, his escape, I resolved to keep the circumstance a secret from my party, and if possible, get him away before daybreak.
No sooner did he learn my intentions regarding him, than in an instant all memory of his past misfortune, all thoughts of his present destitute condition, seemed to have fled; and while I dressed his wound and bound up his shattered arm, he chattered away as unconcernedly about the past and the future as though seated beside the fire of his own bivouac, and surrounded by his own brother officers.
“You took us by surprise the other day,” said he. “Our marshal looked for the attack from the mouth of the river; we received information that your ships were expected there. In any case, our retreat was an orderly one, and must have been effected with slight loss.”
I smiled at the self-complacency of this reasoning, but did not contradict him.