This brief meeting--the whole episode in all its details interested me deeply. Those women so highly bred, so delicately nurtured, so richly dressed, so gentle and winning in manner, were so different from those whom I was now compelled to meet, in camp and barracks, at the canteen and sutler's tent, that for the first time my heart repined at the prospect before me. "Pshaw!" said I, "let me think of this no more." But near a lamp I reined up to examine the lady's card, and searched my pockets in vain. I had lost it! "It matters little," thought I; "and yet, withal, I should like to have known their names." And amid the roar and bustle of the lighted streets of London, I still seemed to hear the merry laugh and gentle voice of the fair-haired girl whose hand I had so recently held in mine. CHAPTER XII. THE RACE. All the adventures of the preceding night appeared but a dream, when early next morning--at least so early as I could hope to find any high officials at their office--I rode through the crowded streets of London, and delivered the despatch of Commodore Howe at the Admiralty. "Immediate" being written on the envelope, I had to remain in a waiting-room for more than an hour, after which the answer was entrusted to me, addressed, "On H.M. Service," to Commodore Howe. As I afterwards learned from the public prints, this document, among other instructions, empowered him to avail himself of "the services and information of the two French deserters named on the margin--Theophile Damien and Benoit Bossoit." I consigned it to my sabretasche, remounted, and quitted London at a quick pace about two p.m. On leaving the greater thoroughfares behind, when traversing the suburbs I easily lost my way, and at a tavern, near which a number of fellows in their shirtsleeves were playing skittles, I drew up to inquire the way to Portsmouth. I questioned one who was seated at the door smoking; he was a man with a very sullen and forbidding expression of face, who had his left hand thrust into the breast of his vest. He wore a shabby snuff-coloured suit with large steel buttons; his legs were incased in long riding-boots spotted with mud, and I perceived the brass butts of a pair of pistols, peeping from his square flapped side pockets. I was somewhat surprised when this sinister-looking stranger, after giving me a long and ferocious stare, started from his seat, uttered a deep imprecation, and entered the house. I then called to the skittle players, and repeated my question to them. On this they simultaneously abandoned their game, and gathered about me. "The Portsmouth road lies straight before you," said one; "be you going to France, my lad?" On my replying in the affirmative, they gave a simultaneous cheer, and, amid cries of "Old England for ever!" and "Down with the Johnny Crapauds!" I had to drink with them all, and they continued to wave their hats as long as I was in sight, while galloping along the road they had indicated.