"'I heard all Paris humming round the thick of the stone every day, and sometimes the sound of thousands of soldiers tramping past below, over the next bridge, with music and such like--no doubt when the First Consul, as they called him, went off to some campaign or other: then I'd dream I felt the deck under me in a fresh breeze at night, till the soul sickened in me to wake up and find the stones as still as before, and now and then hear the sentries challenging on their rounds. "'Well, one day, a fellow in a cloak, with a slouch hat over his forehead, was let in to try, as I thought, if there was anything to be got out of me, as they tried two or three times at first; some spy he was, belonging to that police devil Fouché. What did he offer me, d'ye think, after beating about the bush for half-an-hour, but the command of a French seventy-four under the Emperor, as he was by that time, and, if I would take it, I was free! On this I pretended to be thinking of it, when the police fellow sidled near me, to show a commission signed with the Emperor's name at the foot. "'In place of taking hold of it, however, I jumped up and seized the villain's nose and chin before he saw my purpose, stuffed the parchment into his mouth by way of a gag, and made him dance round the cell, with his cloak over his head and his sword dangling alongside of him, to keep his stern clear of my foot; till the turnkey heard the noise, and he made bolt out as soon as the door was opened. You'd wonder how long that small matter served me to laugh over, for my spirit wasn't broken yet, you see; but even then, in the very midst of it, I would all of a sudden turn sick at heart, and sit wondering when the exchange of prisoners would be made that I looked for. The worst of it was, at times a horrid notion would come into my head of the French seventy-four being at sea at the moment, and me almost wishing they'd give me the offer over again--I fancied I felt the very creak of her straining in the trough of a sea, and saw the canvas of her topsails over me, standing on her poop with a glass in my hand, till she rose on a crest, and there were the _Agamemnon's_ lighted ports bearing down to leeward upon us, till I heard Nelson's terrible voice sing out, "Give it to 'em, my lads!" when the flash of her broadside showed me his white face under the cocked hat, and it came whizzing over like a thirty-two-pound shot right into my breast, as I sunk to the bottom, and found myself awake in the prison.