"An exclamation of disgust and indignation that escaped me woke up the Baron, who after drinking deeply from a great pewter flask of skiedam that hung at his saddlebow, muttered "schelms" several times, rubbed his eyes, and then bellowed through his trumpet to bind up the other prisoner. Human endurance could stand this no more, and though I deemed the offer vain, I proposed to give a hundred English guineas as ransom.
"'Ach Gott!' said the greedy Hollander immediately becoming interested; "but vere you get zo mosh guilder?'
"'Oh, readily, Mynheer Baron,' I replied, drawing forth my pocket-book, 'I have here bills on his Grace the Duke of Maryborough's paymaster and on the Bank of Amsterdam for much more than that.'
"'Bot I cannot led off de brisoner for zo little—hunder ponds—dat ver small—zay two.'
"If one is not enough, Mynheer Baron, I will refer to the decision of his grace the captain-general.'
"'Ach, der tuyvel! vill you?' said the Dutchman, with a savage gleam in his little eyes which showed that he quite understood my hint, 'vell, me vont quarrel vid you; gib me de bills and de schelm is yours.'
"Resolving, nevertheless, to lay the whole affair before Marlborough, the moment I reached our trenches at Aire, I gave a bill for the required sum, and approaching the other Frenchman requested him to remain beside me; but he seemed too much confused by grief, and cold, and horror to comprehend what I said. Poor fellow! his whole soul and sympathies seemed absorbed in the mangled corpse of his brother, which was now unbound from the halberts and lay half sunk among the new-fallen snow. While he stooped over it, and hastily, but tenderly, proceeded to draw the half-frozen clothing upon the stiffened form, the orders of Van Wandenberg were heard hoarsely through his speaking-trumpet, as they rang over the desolate plain, and his troopers wheeled back from a circle into line—from line into open column of troops, and thereafter the torches were extinguished and the march begun. Slowly and solemnly the dragoons glided away into the darkness, each with a pyramid of snow rising from the steeple crown and ample brims of his broad beaver hat.
"It was now almost midnight; the red moon had waned, the snow-storm was increasing, and there were I and the young Frenchman, with his brother's corpse, left together on the wide plain, without a place to shelter us."
"Proceed, Monsieur," said the Frenchman, as the narrator paused; "for I am well aware that your story ends not there."
"It does not—you seem interested; but I have little more to relate, save that I dismounted and assisted the poor Frenchman to raise the body from the snow, and to tie it across the saddle of my horse, taking the bridle in one hand, I supported him with the other, and thus we proceeded to the nearest town."