"Where are your dispatches, gentlemen? You have preserved them, I hope?"
Ralph produced the two quills.
"They are duplicate, general," he said. "We each carried one, in case any accident might befall one of us."
"Thank you," the general said. "I need now detain you no longer. I have work here for all night, and you had better go instantly to bed. Your brother is in a high state of fever."
He touched a bell, and an officer in waiting came in.
"Captain Bar, will you kindly take these gentlemen to a hotel, at once. The horses are, as usual, in the carriage I suppose; and,"--he dropped his voice--"send a message from me to request Doctor Marcey to see them, at once. The younger one is in a state of high fever."
In another quarter of an hour the boys were in comfortable beds, in rooms adjoining each other. Ralph--who was heavy and stupid, with the effects of the cold--was asleep almost the instant his head touched the pillow. He was roused a short time afterwards by being shaken and, opening his eyes, he saw someone leaning over him.
"Drink this," the gentleman said, holding a glass to his lips.
Ralph mechanically did as he was told; and fell off again into a heavy sleep, from which he did not awake until late the next afternoon.
His first impulse was to look at his watch. It had stopped at eleven o'clock, the night before--the hour at which he had entered the Seine. Then he rang the bell.