It was not impossible, too, that it might prove a Guerilla party, who frequently, in small numbers, hang upon the rear of a retreating army.

Thus conjecturing, I crossed the stream, and quickening my pace, walked forward in the direction of the blaze.

For a moment a projecting rock obstructed my progress; and while I was devising some means of proceeding farther, the sound of voices near me arrested my attention.

I listened, and what was my astonishment to hear that they spoke in French.

I now crept cautiously to the verge of the rock and looked over; the moon was streaming in its full brilliancy upon a little shelving strand beside the stream, and here I now beheld the figure of a French officer.