As they halted and formed line in the court of the fortress, Lisle was somewhat surprised to hear himself accosted in Spanish by an officer, who, muffled in a large military cloak, came from the keep. He recognised his friend of Aranjuez, the father of Donna Virginia,—the same traitorous Spanish noble who now openly served Buonaparte; and as commandant of a French garrison wore a staff-uniform embroidered with oak-leaves. Lisle thought of Virginia,—indeed he never thought of aught else: and veiling his dislike to the duke, he answered him as politely as possible. He would fain have asked after the fair donna, but feared to arouse the keen and ready suspicions of the proud and pompous Spaniard, while so completely within his power. The duke behaved to him coldly but courteously; and, after receiving his parole of honour that he would not transgress the bounds of the châtelet, invited him to dinner, and retired. Louis was now his own master, with leave to perambulate as much as he chose the court-yard and palisades of the out-works, while the sentries from every nook and corner kept sharp eyes upon him, and often, when he attempted to pass their posts, barred the way with ported arms, and saying, "Pardon me, monsieur, you must not pass;" but with a softness of tone and politeness of manner, very different from what those of a British sentinel would be on a similar occasion. The hours passed slowly away, and Louis began to feel very disconsolate, and very impatient of the monotony and restraint of a prisoner’s life, forming as it did so strong a contrast to the heart-stirring excitement of campaigning. As it was contrary to their orders, the sentinels could not converse with him, and in truth his French was none of the best; so he passed the time in sauntering dismally about until the sun began to verge westward, and he knew that the dinner-hour was approaching. In the mean time, he wiled away the hours as well as he could, by whistling a march, humming a waltz, or tossing pebbles and fragments of lime from the ramparts to raise circles and bubbles in the Nive, which swept round an angle of the rocks on which the fortress stood. These employments he varied by watching with an intense interest the distant Pyrenees, in hopes to see the far away glitter of arms announce the approach of the allies, whose troops he knew to be in that direction. The eagerness of his glance towards Spain did not escape the observation of messieurs the sentries of the 105th; and they twirled their moustaches and regarded each other with a truly French smile of hauteur and complaisance, as they strode briskly to and fro on their posts; and one young man, pointing towards the Lower Pyrenees, remarked to him significantly with a smile, "_Ce pays sent lapoudre à canon, monsieur!_"[*] [*] Literally, "this place, or country, smells of gunpowder, sir."