Therese uttered a cry and sprang forward; but she was less alert than Count d'Arcot, who, at that moment, threw himself between the baron and the object of his jealous anger. "Permit _me_ to arrange this matter," said the Marshal du Camp, unsheathing his sword; "officer, answer me truly on your honour--on your life--how long you have been here." "Six days, M. le Comte." "Oh, _sang Dieu_!" swore the baron, pirouetting about in a fresh gust of fury; "six whole days." "How came you here?" "On a litter, insensible--being half-drowned, in attempting to save the life of a French soldier in the Garonne." "You are a prisoner--" "On my parole," interrupted Munro, bowing. "One of those who were landed at Castillon from America, and were _en route_ for the Chateau de Trompette?" "Exactly, M. le Comte." "You are named--" "Munro--Hector Munro, lieutenant in the 42nd Highlanders." "The old Black Watch!" said the Maréchal du Camp, sheathing his sword, while an inexplicable expression came over his grave features; "I once knew well an officer who bore the good old name of Munro." "My father, perhaps," said the prisoner, anxiously; "he was a brave soldier." "_Was_--he is, then, dead?" "He fell in action against the Spaniards!" "Where?" "At the storming of the Moro Castle." "And what was his rank?" "Colonel of his Britannic Majesty's 60th Regiment of Infantry." "Or Royal Americans?" continued the count, with a kindling eye. "The same, M. le Comte." "Did he command at Fort William Henry, where the defeated troops were so shamefully abandoned by General Webb, and were afterwards massacred by the Iroquois?" "He did. I was saved from that massacre by the wife of a French soldier. It was my second narrow escape from the Iroquois, then; for once before two Indians bore me into the forest, and my life was spared by the luckiest chance in the world." "You must have been very young," said Beauchatel; "I too, served there, and am quite an old fellow now." "I was a mere child, messieurs, in those days." "Ah, they will soon be friends now!" thought Therese; "already they are comrades." "And you were saved--" resumed D'Arcot. "By an officer named MacGillivray, who was on his march to join that ill-fated garrison with a party of the Black Watch, the same regiment to which I have now the honour to belong. Then followed that unparalleled massacre, the memory of which seems like a horrible dream to me." "And to me, too, boy; for I, also, was at the siege of Fort William Henry, and I was that lieutenant of the Black Watch who saved you from the Iroquois," said Count d'Arcot, taking the hand of Munro in his; "I had, then, a wife--perhaps a child," he added in a troubled voice; "but both lie buried in the forest by the shore of Lake George!" "Your wife, M. le Comte," said Beauchatel; "how did she die?"