"I should like to find him," replied the gendarme, "for you know that to retake a runaway prisoner is certain promotion. You will be made a corporal."
"So much the better," replied O'Brien; "adieu, mon ami."
"Nay, I merely came for a walk, and will return with you to Malines, where of course you are bound."
"We shall not get there to-night," said O'Brien, "my prisoner is too much fatigued."
"Well, then, we will go as far as we can; and I will assist you. Perhaps we may find the second, who, I understand, obtained a map of the fortress by some means or other."
We at once perceived that we were discovered. He afterwards told us that the body of a gendarme had been found in the wood, no doubt murdered by the prisoners, and that the body was stripped naked. "I wonder," continued he, "whether one of the prisoners put on his clothes, and passed as a gendarme."
"Peter," said O'Brien, "are we to murder this man or not?"
"I should say not: pretend to trust him, and then we may give him the slip." This was said during the time that the gendarme stopped a moment behind us.
"Well, we'll try; but first I'll put him off his guard." When the gendarme came up with us, O'Brien observed, that the English prisoners were very liberal; that he knew that a hundred Napoleons were often paid for assistance, and he thought that no corporal's rank was equal to a sum that would in France make a man happy and independent for life.
"Very true," replied the gendarme; "and let me only look upon that sum, and I will guarantee a positive safety out of France."