THE GOLDEN AGE
cause when Indians take you prisoner they scalp you first, and then burn you at the stake. But Frenchmen don't do that sort of thing.'
'Are you quite sure?' asked Harold doubtfully.
'Quite,' I replied. 'Frenchmen only shut you up in a thing called the Bastille; and then you get a file sent in to you in a loaf of bread, and saw the bars through, and slide down a rope, and they all fire at you—but they don't hit you—and you run down to the seashore as hard as you can, and swim off to a British frigate, and there you are!'
Harold brightened up again. The programme was rather attractive. 'If they try to take us prisoner,' he said, 'we—we won't run, will we?'
Meanwhile, the craven foe was a long time showing himself; and we were reaching strange outland country, uncivilised, wherein lions might be expected to prowl at nightfall. I had a stitch in my side, and both Harold's stockings had come down. Just as I was beginning to have gloomy doubts of the proverbial courage
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