"General Reynier!" exclaimed the sergeant to his comrades. "It must be the general's wife. I heard she was among those killed or carried off from that convoy that came through last night. Jacques, fetch out Captain Thibault, and you, Noel, run for Dr. Pasques." The officer on guard came out, and, upon hearing the sergeant's report, had Madame Reynier at once carried into a house hard by, and sent a message to the colonel of the regiment. The little girl, still asleep, was also carried in and laid down, and the regimental doctor and the colonel soon arrived. The former went into the house, the latter endeavored in vain to question the boys in French. Finding it useless, he walked up and down impatiently until a message came down from the doctor that the lady had recovered from her fainting fit, and wished to see him at once. Tom and Peter, finding that no one paid any attention to them, sat, quietly down by the guard-house. In a few minutes the French colonel came down. "Where are those boys?" he exclaimed hastily. There was quite a crowd of soldiers round the house, for the news of the return of General Reynier's wife and child had circulated rapidly and created quite an excitement. "Where are those boys?" he shouted again. The sergeant of the guard came forward. "I had no orders to keep them prisoners, sir," he said in an apologetic tone, for he had not noticed the boys, and thought that he was going to get into a scrape for not detaining them; but he was interrupted by one of the soldiers who had heard the question, bringing them forward. To the astonishment of the soldiers, the colonel rushed forward, and, with a Frenchman's enthusiasm, actually kissed them. "Mes braves garcons!" he exclaimed. "Mes braves garcons! Look you, all of you," he exclaimed to the soldiers, "you see these boys, they are heroes, they have saved, at the risk of their own lives, mark you, General Reynier's wife and daughter; they have braved the fury of that accursed Nunez and his band, and have brought them out from that den of wolves." And then, in excited tones, he described the scene as he had heard it from Madame Reynier. At this relation the enthusiasm of the French soldiers broke out in a chorus of cheers and excited exclamations. The men crowded round the boys, shook them by the hands, patted them on the back, and in a hundred strange oaths vowed an eternal friendship for them. After a minute or two, the colonel raised his hand for silence. "Look you," he said to the men. "You can imagine that, after what these boys have done, their life is not safe for a moment. This accursed Nunez will dog them and have them assassinated if he can. So I leave them to you; you will take care of them, my children, will you not?"