At the instant I do not know _what_ sum I would have considered too great to have purchased my ransom and placed me once more at the head of my men. I need scarcely say that I regretted the step I had taken, but it was too late. The figures continued to advance towards the spot where I was crouched, and were already within a few paces of me. I did not know what to do; I dreaded remaining stationary, and I was ashamed to run away—there was not a moment to be lost, and I made up my mind to sell my life dearly. I sprang up with my drawn sabre in my hand, and called out as loud as I was able (and it was but a so-so effort), “Who goes there?” My delight was great to find, in place of two Frenchmen (the advance, as I expected, of several hundred), Captain Patten of the Engineers attended by a sergeant of his corps; he held a dark lantern under his cloak, and told me he had been on his way to reconnoitre the breach in the castle wall, but that he thought it as well to return to the first covering party he should meet with in order to get a file of men which he proposed taking with him to within a short distance of the breach. I was just then in that frame of mind from my own little adventure to approve highly of his precaution, and I gave him a couple of what our fellows (the Connaught Rangers) used to call lads _that weren’t easy_, or, to speak without a metaphor, two fellows that would walk into the mouth of a cannon if they were bid to do it. Previous to this I had passed an uneasy night, but I was now filled with much anxiety for the fate of Captain Patten and my own two men. They had left me about a quarter of an hour when a few musket-shots from the bastion nearest the breach announced that the _reconnaissance_ had not been made unnoticed by the enemy; and shortly after, the return of my soldiers confirmed the fact. It appeared that upon arriving within pistol-shot of the wall Captain Patten motioned to the men to lie down, while he crept forward to the breach; he had succeeded in ascertaining its state, and was about to return to the soldiers, when some inequality in the ground caused him to stumble a little, and the noise attracted the notice of the nearest sentinel, whose fire gave the alarm to the others. One of their shots struck Captain Patten in the back, a little below the shoulder, and he survived its effects but a few hours. Thus fell a fine young man, an ornament to that branch of the service to which he belonged, and a branch which in point of men of highly cultivated scientific information, as well as the most chivalrous bravery, may challenge the world to show its superior.