"No," Jacques answered. "I might have waited long enough before that.
I can't make out myself why the two governments don't agree to
exchange prisoners more quickly. I suppose they take about an equal
number. Your men-of-war ships capture more prisoners than ours, but we
make up for it by the numbers our privateers bring in. At any rate
they might exchange as many as they can, say once in six months. One
would have thought they would be glad to do so so as to save
themselves the trouble and expense of looking after and feeding such a
number of useless mouths. Governments always have curious ways."

"But how did you get away from prison?" Ralph asked.

"It was a woman," the man replied. "It is always women who help men
out of scrapes. It was the wife of one of the jailers. She used to
bring her husband's dinner sometimes when we were exercising in the
yard. When I first went there she had a child in her arms--a little
thing about a year old. I was always fond of children; for we had a
lot at home, brothers and sisters, and I was the eldest. She saw me
look at it one day, and I suppose she guessed it reminded me of home.
So she stopped and let me pat its cheek and talk to it. Then I knitted
it some socks and a little jacket and other things, and that made a
sort of friendship between us. You can always win a woman's heart by
taking notice of her child. Then she got to letting me carry it about
on my shoulder while she took her husband's dinner in to him, if he
did not happen to be in the yard. And when the little thing was able
to totter it would hold on to my finger, and was always content to
stay with me while she was away. So it went on till the child was four
years old.

"One day it was running across the court to its mother as she came out