clean-shaven, with round, comely faces, looking to me more like monks
than dragoons. At a short, gruff order they halted with a rattle of
arms, while their leader cantered forward, the fire beating upon his
eager face and the beautiful head of his charger. I knew, of course, by
the strange coats that they were English. It was the first sight that I
had ever had of them, but from their stout bearing and their masterful
way I could see at a glance that what I had always been told was true,
and that they were excellent people to fight against.

'Well, well, well!' cried the young officer, in sufficiently bad French,
'what game are you up to here? Who was that who was yelling for help,
and what are you trying to do to him?'

It was at that moment that I learned to bless those months which
Obriant, the descendant of the Irish kings, had spent in teaching me the
tongue of the English. My ankles had just been freed, so that I had only
to slip my hands out of the cords, and with a single rush I had flown
across, picked up my sabre where it lay by the fire, and hurled myself
on to the saddle of poor Vidal's horse. Yes, for all my wounded ankle, I
never put foot to stirrup, but was in the seat in a single bound. I tore
the halter from the tree, and before these villains could so much as
snap a pistol at me I was beside the English officer.

'I surrender to you, sir,' I cried; though I daresay my English was not
very much better than his French. 'If you will look at that tree to the
left you will see what these villains do to the honourable gentlemen who
fall into their hands.'

The fire had flared up at that moment, and there was poor Vidal exposed
before them, as horrible an object as one could see in a nightmare.