_La Gloire._ Marry, I told them to meet us with the boat at the sea shore. _Ribau._ Vague booby! at what point? _La Gloire._ That's the point I was coming to, my lord! and, if a certain jutting out of land, in the shape of a white cliff, with brown furze on its top, like a bushy head of hair over a pale face, stand where it did---- _Ribau._ East of the town:--I have mark'd it. _La Gloire._ Look you there, now! what I have hunted after, a whole day, to fix upon, hath he noted without labour. Oh, the capacious heads of your great officers!--No wonder they are so careful of them in battle; and thrust forward the pitiful pates of the privates, to be mowed off like a parcel of daisies.--But there lies the spot--and there will the mariners come. We are now within ear-shot; and, when they are there, they will whistle. _Ribau._ And, till they give the signal, here, if there be aught of safety to be picked from danger, is the least dangerous spot to tarry for them. We are here full early. _La Gloire._ I would we were not here at all. This same scheme of victualling a town, blockaded by the enemy, is a service for which I have little appetite. _Ribau._ Think, La Gloire, on the distress of our countrymen--the inhabitants perishing with hunger. _La Gloire._ Truly, my lord, it doth move the bowels of my compassion. Yet, consider your risk--consider your rank! The gallant Count Ribaumont, flower of chivalry, cream of the French army, and commander of his regiment, turned cook to the corporation of Calais!--carving his way to glory, through stubble-rumped capons, unskinned mutton, raw veal, and vegetables!--and, perhaps, my lord, just before we are able to serve up the meat to the town, in comes a raw-boned Englishman, and runs his spit through your body! _Ribau._ Pr'ythee, no more objections. _La Gloire._ Nay, I object not,--I;--but I have served your honour, in and out of the army, babe boy, and man, these five and twenty years, come the next feast of the Virgin; and Heaven forfend I should be out of service, by being out of my master! _Ribau._ Well, well, I know thy zeal. _La Gloire._ And yet your English rapier is a marvellous sudden dissolver of attachments. 'Twill sever the closest connexions. 'Twill even whip you, for ever, friend head from his intimate acquaintance, neck and shoulders, before they have time to take leave:--Not that I object;--yet men do not always sleep. The fat centinel, as we passed the outpost, might have waked with his own snoring; and--