'Godam!' cried the officer, and 'Godam!' cried each of the four
troopers, which is the same as with us when we cry 'Mon Dieu!' Out
rasped the five swords, and the four men closed up. One, who wore a
sergeant's chevrons, laughed and clapped me on the shoulder.

'Fight for your skin, froggy,' said he.

Ah, it was so fine to have a horse between my thighs and a weapon in my
grip. I waved it above my head and shouted in my exultation. The chief
had come forward with that odious smiling face of his.

'Your excellency will observe that this Frenchman is our prisoner,' said
he.

'You are a rascally robber,' said the Englishman, shaking his sword at
him. 'It is a disgrace to us to have such allies. By my faith, if Lord
Wellington were of my mind we would swing you up on the nearest tree.'

'But my prisoner?' said the brigand, in his suave voice.

'He shall come with us to the British camp.'

'Just a word in your ear before you take him.'

He approached the young officer, and then turning as quick as a flash,
he fired his pistol in my face. The bullet scored its way through my
hair and burst a hole on each side of my busby. Seeing that he had
missed me, he raised the pistol and was about to hurl it at me when the
English sergeant, with a single back-handed cut, nearly severed his head
from his body. His blood had not reached the ground, nor the last curse