"Ah! they have come to terms at last!" said the little commandant, nodding with a very satisfied air to the officer who sat opposite him; and then rising, he handed me a chair. "Proud to see you, monsieur," he added, uncovering his bald head; "be seated—the wine is close to you. There is Muscatelle, or, if you like it better, far-famed Lachryma Christi and Greco, from grapes raised on the slopes of Vesuvius. We can get these things, you see, notwithstanding that the Scots colonel does push the trenches so vigorously. Mille bombes! ah, what a man he is! Yes, and we can get that which warms our hearts better than even Falernian wine or Greco—eh, Pepe?" he added, rubbing his nose, and giving a sly glance at his morose companion, who intently broke the shell of his third egg, without deigning to notice me. "Would you prefer chocolate to wine, monsieur?" continued the colonel. "We will talk over matters during breakfast. I am glad you have come to terms—very!" I accepted his invitation; but could not resist smiling at the complacent manner in which the Frenchman spoke of besiegers coming to terms with the garrison of a place which their cannon had almost reduced to ruins. "How did your free Calabrians like the way we scoured the trenches the other night?" asked Captain Pepe, while handing me coffee. "You taught them a good lesson. The marmalade? Thank you. An hour in the trenches has given me quite an appetite." "And how did your old tub of a frigate, and her fry of gun-boats, like the chain-shot, the cross-bars, and stang-balls we favoured them with this morning?" "Monsieur, I did not come here to answer insolent questions, but to deliver this despatch to Colonel Bourmont; who I have the pleasure to perceive is a French officer of the old school—a gentleman, and not a Parisian bully." A quiet smile spread over Bourmont’s face, as he bowed and took Macleod’s letter; while Pepe, like a cowed bravo, bit his white lips and glared at me with ill-concealed malice and animosity: but I continued to help myself with perfect composure. Exasperated by this cutting contempt—"By heaven and hell!" he exclaimed, "were it not that I must hold sacred the white flag you carry—mille baionettes!—I would cut you in two!" and starting from the table, Pepe retired into a recess of the window; where he affected to observe the saucy _Amphion_, which was riding with her broadside to the shore, the union-jack waving from her mizen peak—a striking feature in the view, but ill-calculated to soothe the wrath of the irritated Gaul. I could read the history of this repulsive man in the coarse features and strong lines of his sunburnt visage.