"As I crossed the open space to gain the copse, piff! came a bullet, whizzing past me; and just as I reached the cover, piff! came another. I ducked my head, and made for the thicket, but just as I did so, my foot caught in a branch. I stumbled, and pitched forward; and, trying to save myself, I grasped a bough above me. It smashed suddenly, and down I went. Ay! down sure enough, for I went right through the furze, and into a well--one of those old, walled wells they have in these countries, with a huge bucket that fills up the whole space, and is worked by a chain. Luckily the bucket was linked up near the top, and caught me, or I should have gone where there would have been no more heard of Pierre Canot; as it was, I was sorely bruised by the fall, and didn't recover myself for full ten minutes after. Then I discovered that I was sitting in a large wooden trough, hooped with iron, and supported by two heavy chains that passed over a windlass, about ten feet above my head. "I was safe enough, for the matter of that; at least none were likely to discover me, as I could easily see, by the rust of the chain and he grass-grown edges, that the well had been long disused. Now the position was far from being pleasant. There stood the farm-house, full of soldiers, the muskets ranging over every approach to where I lay. Of my comrades, there was nothing to be seen, they had either missed the way or retreated: and so time crept on, and I pondered on what might be going forward elsewhere, and whether it would ever be my own fortune to see my comrades again.