"O no! your behaviour is too cavalier-like and gentle for that; and we have become quite like very old friends in half-an-hour’s time." "Do you fear the darkness, then?" "_Mon dieu_! Ah! the darkness is nothing new to me. Alas!" replied she, shrugging her shoulders, "since the field of Vittoria I have passed every night in dark and lonely places; and I wonder now how one so timid, and so delicately nurtured has not sunk under all the fears and privations I have undergone for some days and nights past." The lady started. At that moment the voice of a sentinel was heard to give the usual challenge. "Who comes, there?" "Rounds!" answered the bold voice of Fassifern, and the tramp of his horse’s hoofs rang on the roadway between the mountains. "Stand, rounds!" replied the sentry, porting his musquet, and so on; with the usual ceremony, the parole and countersign were given and received. "Excuse me, madame, but for a minute," said Stuart. "I am just in time; an instant later, and I should have been missed." Leaving the side of the trembling lady he bustled about, and got his picquet under arms. On the departure of Fassifern, whose movements the baroness had watched with no ordinary feelings of caution and fear, Evan was despatched for Macdonald, whom he found enjoying himself with some other officers at a wine-house in Elizondo. He came promptly enough, and was not a little surprised when Ronald requested as a favour, that he would escort a young lady to within sight of the French lines, explaining at the same time, in as few words as possible, her story and the nature of her situation. Alister at once accepted the honour of being her convoy. "But," said he, looking into the gloom which surrounded them, "the route is confoundedly dreary across the mountains to the rock of Maya,—Gazan’s post." "I am perfectly aware of it," replied Stuart, with an air of pique. "’Tis impossible the baroness can go alone, and gallantry requires us to set Wellington’s orders at defiance for once, and not deliver her up. I would have escorted her myself, but cannot leave my picquet." "Monsieur," said the baroness, "I am indeed sorry to trouble you; but surely you do not complain of the duty—" "Oh, no! impossible, madame," exclaimed Alister, the blood mounting to his handsome features at the idea, while, gracefully raising his bonnet, he observed her fair face by the red light of the fire. "But will you entrust yourself to the guidance of one who is entirely a stranger, through a road so dark and dangerous?" "I have no alternative, alas!" said she, bending her bright eyes into the gloom, as if she strove to pierce the depths beyond. She shuddered. "’Tis very dark, indeed, messieurs. I have no alternative but to go, or to remain and be sent a captive to Britain. Monsieur, I will go with you. I will depend on the untarnished honour of a British officer, that I shall be conveyed in safety to Gazan’s sentinels at the rock of Maya."