"I understand perfectly," the captain said. "Be easy, you shall be well hanged." He thereupon turned to John Lebrenn, saying, "You, comrade, will take the prisoners to headquarters, and transmit these shreds of paper to the staff-officer to whom you give the account of your capture. One or two volunteers will accompany you to keep watch on the two rascals."
"Do not weaken your post, Citizen Captain," said Duchemin. "On my way back to my battery I shall accompany my comrade as far as the General's quarters."
Then John Lebrenn, noticing for the first time the cannonier whose patriotism had so strongly touched him a year before, cried out: "Citizen James Duchemin!"
"Present, comrade! But how the deuce did you know me?"
"I'll tell you on our way to the General's," replied John. And soon, taking the Jesuit by the collar while Duchemin seized little Rodin firmly by the hand, the volunteer and the artilleryman left the inn and set out towards the burg of Ingelsheim.
"The capture of the two spies prevented me from acquainting friend John with what I have discovered as to Citizeness Victoria and our apprentice Oliver," thought Castillon that night as he stretched himself out to rest on his pallet of straw. "Well, the confidence will come a little later!"
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE HEROINE IN ARMS.
The headquarters of General Hoche were established in the Commune Hall of the burg of Ingelsheim; soldiers and under-officers of various corps of the army, detailed as orderlies, awaited the commands of the General in a sort of vestibule leading to the room in which Hoche himself, together with his fellow-General Pichegru and their aides-de-camp, were in conference with St. Just, Lebas, Randon and Lacost, the Representatives of the people sent on special mission from the Convention to the Armies of the Rhine and Moselle. Among the various troopers seated about on the benches, and for the most part sleeping, overcome by the fatigues of the day, were two, a cavalryman and a quartermaster of the Third Hussars, who sat to one side of the folding door in earnest conversation. The manly beauty of one of them, his light brown complexion, the soft black down which shaded his upper lip, his thick eyelashes, his height, the squareness of his shoulders, and the fire and boldness of his glance, left no doubt but that it was Victoria, the missing sister of John Lebrenn. Her companion, who could be none other than the apprentice Oliver, seemed transfigured. His radiant youthful features now shone with hope and martial ardor. His large brilliant blue eyes seemed to mirror dazzling visions. One would have said it was Mars himself in the uniform of a hussar.
"With what impatience I await the morrow," he was saying to Victoria. "Here in my heart I feel that I shall either be killed or named sub-lieutenant on the field of battle. Hoche, our General-in-chief, was sub-lieutenant at twenty-two; I shall be an officer at eighteen! What a future opens before me!"
Dreaming of his martial career, the young soldier gazed long and silently into the golden picture it held up before him. Victoria observed him closely. An inscrutable smile overspread her lips, when suddenly, recalled from his revery by the recollections of love, Oliver blushed and added: "If I am made an officer, perhaps you will at last think me worthy of you, Victoria! Oh! what happiness! To merit the supreme gifts of your tenderness, or to die before your eyes!"