“Just so; I wish your army had been equally generous, with all my heart,” added he, as coolly as before; “here we are in full retreat on Cairo.” “On Damanhour, you mean,” said Darcy. “Not a bit of it; on Cairo, General. There's no need of mincing the matter; we need fear no eavesdropper here. Ah, by the by, your German friends were retaken, and by a detachment of their own regiment too. We saw the fellows shot the morning after the action.” “Now that you are kind enough to tell me what is going forward, perhaps you could let me know something of my poor comrades whom you took prisoners on the night of the 9th.” “Yes. They are with few exceptions dead of their wounds, two men exchanged about a week since; and then, what strange fellows your countrymen are! They sent us back a major of brigade in exchange for a wounded soldier who, when he left our camp, did not seem to have life enough to bring him across the lines!” “Did you see him?” asked Darcy, eagerly. “Yes; I commanded the escort. He was a young fellow of scarcely more than four-and-twenty, and must have been good-looking too.” “Of course you could not tell his name,” said the Knight, despondingly. “No; I heard it, however, but it has escaped me. There was a curious story brought back about him by our brigade-major, and one which, I assure you, furnished many a hearty laugh at your land of noble privileges and aristocratic forms'.” “Pray let me hear it.” “Oh, I cannot tell you one-half of it; the finale interested the major most, because it concerned himself, and this he repeated to us at least a dozen times. It would seem, then, that this youth--a rare thing, I believe, in your service--was a man of birth, but, according to your happy institutions, was a man of nothing more, for he was a younger son. Is not that your law?” Darcy nodded, and the other resumed. “Well, in some fit of spleen at not being born a year or two earlier, or for some love affair with one of your blond insensibles, or from weariness of your gloomy climate, or from any other true British cause of despair, our youth became a soldier. _Parbleu!_ your English chivalry has its own queer notions, when it regards the service as a last resource of the desperate! No matter, he enlisted, came out here, fought bravely, and was taken prisoner in the very same attack with yourself; but while Fortune dealt heavily with one hand, she was caressing with the other, for, the same week she condemned him to a French prison, she made him a peer of England, having taken off the elder brother, an ambassador at some court, I believe, by a fever. So goes the world; good and ill luck battling against each, and one never getting uppermost without the other recruiting strength for a victory in turn.” “These are strange tidings, indeed,” said the Knight, musing, “and would interest me deeply, if I knew the individual.”