"And I tell him the whole story, by gar! I spare not myself at all, though he scorns me with his hand, and calls me 'blackleg,' and thanks me nothing for my story, but after that he is kinder to me, and rouses himself to scoop with me through our prison floor, with the broken plate--I with the rusty key, and when we stand face to face under the stars beyond the prison bars, his hand so thin, so bleeding, is pointed Northward, his sunken eyes gather fire, and he says: "'My fortune is on the Federal battle-field; such life as God sends me I shall seek there; I am done forever with England.' "_Mon Dieu!_ I love my brave St. Udo like a brother. Would I let my brother drop Seven-Oak Waaste through his fingers? "I say him neither yea nor nay, but traverse with him the dreary swamps, and we go to Washington. "His wounds and weakness threw him sick into an hospital. I, in my efforts to have a knight of industry properly compensated, am driven with howlings from the savage place, and in the pursuit of a virtuous livelihood in New York, lose sight for a time of my St. Udo. "Mademoiselle Walsingham, if Dame Fortune had really frowned upon my little secret scheme, which was to punish the dastard Mortlake, and to advance my brave _camarade_, she would not have thrown St. Udo in my way so persistently, when with the tears and sorrow I had been forced to part with him, as I feared for the last time, at Washington. "But look you! In my pursuit of purchasers for my famous war-horses, I find myself in a hospital, where a general--great man--has promised to meet me, and I meet once more my colonel. He has been sent to New York for better attendance than can be got in the overcrowded hospitals of Washington, and I find him weak as a child from wound-fever, and, by gar! I am so overjoyed that I fall upon his neck and forgot to drive my bargain with the general. "I say to him: '_Mon ami_, I devote myself to you. I pledge myself to cancel the past by making up to you a little fortune. Forswear the sword _mon frere_, and turn it into a pruning-hook as I have done; be _camarade_ with me once more, and we shall reap a harvest of greenbacks from these patriots, who must every one be officer, and to ride away to battle must every one have a brave war-horse. Let _us_ mount them _mon frere_--already I have a modest little something made up wholly from the help I have given these patriots. What say you, my Brand? "_Mon Dieu!_ mademoiselle, he waxes very angry with me, and complains that I am tarnishing his honor with my villainous schemes for self-advancement. I, who am willing to share my purse with him.