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'

'Bring your comrade over to Kehl,' said Galgenstein, delighted. 'I
will give you the best of dinners, and can promise to satisfy both
of you.'

'Had you not better speak to him on the bridge?' said the grenadier.
'I dare not leave my post; but you have but to pass, and talk over
the matter.'

Galgenstein, after a little parley, passed the sentinel; but
presently a panic took him, and he retraced his steps. But the
grenadier brought his bayonet to the Prussian's breast and bade him
stand: that he was his prisoner.

The Prussian, however, seeing his danger, made a bound across the
bridge and into the Rhine; whither, flinging aside his musket, the
intrepid sentry followed him. The Frenchman was the better swimmer
of the two, seized upon the recruiter, and bore him to the Strasburg
side of the stream, where he gave him up.

'You deserve to be shot,' said the general to him, 'for abandoning
your post and arms; but you merit reward for an act of courage and
daring. The King prefers to reward you,' and the man received money
and promotion.

As for Galgenstein, he declared his quality as a nobleman and a
captain in the Prussian service, and applications were made to
Berlin to know if his representations were true. But the King,
though he employed men of this stamp (officers to seduce the
subjects of his allies) could not acknowledge his own shame. Letters
were written back from Berlin to say that such a family existed in
the kingdom, but that the person representing himself to belong to
it must be an impostor, for every officer of the name was at his
regiment and his post. It was Galgenstein's death-warrant, and he
was hanged as a spy in Strasburg.

'Turn him into the cart with the rest,' said he, as soon as I awoke
from my trance.

CHAPTER VI

THE CRIMP WAGGON--MILITARY EPISODES

The covered waggon to which I was ordered to march was standing, as
I have said, in the courtyard of the farm, with another dismal
vehicle of the same kind hard by it. Each was pretty well filled
with a crew of men, whom the atrocious crimp who had seized upon me,
had enlisted under the banners of the glorious Frederick; and I
could see by the lanterns of the sentinels, as they thrust me into
the straw, a dozen dark figures huddled together in the horrible
moving prison where I was now to be confined. A scream and a curse
from my opposite neighbour showed me that he was most likely
wounded, as I myself was; and, during the whole of the wretched
night, the moans and sobs of the poor fellows in similar captivity
kept up a continual painful chorus, which effectually prevented my
getting any relief from my ills in sleep. At midnight (as far as I
could judge) the horses were put to the waggons, and the creaking
lumbering machines were put in motion. A couple of soldiers,
strongly armed, sat on the outer bench of the cart, and their grim
faces peered in with their lanterns every now and then through the
canvas curtains, that they might count the number of their

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