If that fool of an armourer hadn't held his hammer so tight, after he was dead, and it was of no use to him, I should have been clear enough, and so would you have been! but, however, all this is nothing at all, Peter; as far as I can see, the life of a man consists in getting into scrapes, and getting out of them.

By the blessing of God, we've managed the first, and by the blessing of God we'll manage the second also; so be smart, my honey, and get well, for although a man may escape by running away on two legs, I never heard of a boy who hopped out of a French prison upon one." I squeezed the offered hand of O'Brien, and looked round me; the surgeon stood at one side of the bed, and the officer who commanded the troops at the other.

At the head of the bed was a little girl about twelve years old, who held a cup in her hand, out of which something had been poured down my throat.

I looked at her, and she had such pity in her face, which was remarkably handsome, that she appeared to me as an angel, and I turned round as well as I could, that I might look at her alone.

She offered me the cup, which I should have refused from any one but her, and I drank a little.