‘“8th Thermidor, midnight--twelve battalions, and two batteries of field--boats and rafts--Eslar Island--stockades--eight guns--Swabian infantry--sharp firing, and a flourish--strong current--flourish--detachment of the 28th carried down--‘Bom. ‘“Let me see it now--all right--nothing could be better--proceed. “The 10th, 45th, and 48th landing together--more firing--flourish--first gun captured--Bom.--bayonet charges--Bom. Bom.--three guns taken--Bom. Bom. Bom.--Swabs in retreat--flourish. The bridge eighty toises in length-- flanking fire--heavy loss--flourish.”’ ‘You go a little too fast, _mon capitaine_,’ said I, for a sudden bright thought just flashed across me. ‘Very well,’ said he, shaking the ashes of his pipe out upon the rock, ‘I’ll take my doze, and you may awaken me when you’ve filled in those details--it will be a very fair exercise for you’; and with this he threw his handkerchief over his face, and without any other preparation was soon fast asleep. I own that, if I had not been a spectator of the action, it would have been very difficult, if not impossible, for me to draw up anything like a narrative of it from the meagre details of the captain’s note-book. My personal observations, however, assisted by an easy imagination, suggested quite enough to make at least a plausible story, and I wrote away without impediment and halt till I came to that part of the action in which the retreat over the bridge commenced. There I stopped. Was I to remain satisfied with such a crude and one-sided explanation as the notebook afforded, and merely say that the retreating forces were harassed by a strong flank fire from our batteries? Was I to omit the whole of the great incident, the occupation of the ‘Fels Insel,’ and the damaging discharges of grape and round shot which plunged through the crowded ranks, and ultimately destroyed the bridge? Could I--to use the phrase so popular--could I, in the ‘interests of truth,’ forget the brilliant achievement of a gallant band of heroes who, led on by a young hussar of the 9th, threw themselves into the ‘Fels Insel,’ routed the garrison, captured the artillery, and directing its fire upon the retiring enemy, contributed most essentially to the victory. Ought I, in a word, to suffer a name so associated with a glorious action to sink into oblivion? Should Maurice Tiernay be lost to fame out of any neglect or false shame on my part? Forbid it all truth and justice! cried I, as I set myself down to relate the whole adventure most circumstantially. Looking up from time to time at my officer, who slept soundly, I suffered myself to dilate upon a theme in which somehow I felt a more than ordinary degree of interest. The more I dwelt upon the incident, the more brilliant and striking did it seem like the appetite, which the proverb tells us comes by eating, my enthusiasm grew under indulgence, so that, had a little more time been granted me, I verily