The command had been effected so suddenly that Desmond had not been able to make up his mind to request the Duke of Orleans, to whom he had been attached personally, rather than to the French army in Spain, to allow him to return with him to France, in order that he might again join the Duke of Berwick. Before, however, he could decide whether to do so or not, the duke had taken his departure.  
Desmond spoke to the head of the staff, with whom he had been constantly thrown in contact before he left Madrid, and whilst explaining to him, on his return, the details of his report, asked him for his advice.
 
"I should think you had better remain here, Captain Kennedy. There is likely to be a great battle fought, in a few weeks; but if the rumours we hear are correct, we may not be here very much longer. Certainly I hope there will be no change until then, for if we win the battle, and so relieve Spain from the risk of invasion for a time, we can leave the country with a better grace, as Philip would then only have to battle with his rebellious subjects in Catalonia."
 
"I should certainly not wish to leave when a great battle is about to be fought," Desmond said, "and will, therefore, continue to serve under the Marshal de Bay until it is certain what is going to be done."
 
In a short time a general movement of the troops, both Spanish and French, began. Desmond and the other aides-de-camp were actively employed in keeping up communication between the various columns, which were to assemble near Badajos. Moving forward at the same rate as the troops, the march was a pleasant one. It was April now, the country looked bright, and the heat was not too great for marching.
 
The marshal had gone on with the greater portion of his staff, Desmond having been detailed to accompany the division from Toledo. When within two days' march of Badajos, an orderly brought a note from the marshal, requesting him to ride forward at once. This he did without loss of time.
 
Marshal de Bay had taken up his quarters at Badajos, and on arriving in the town, Desmond alighted at the governor's house.
 
"It was a stupid mistake of mine," the head of the staff said, "in sending you on detached duty. I forgot at the moment, when I nominated you, that your knowledge of the locality would be invaluable to us. I only thought of it yesterday when, on the marshal asking for some information on this matter, I pulled out your report. He examined it and said, 'This is very complete and valuable, Colonel. Whom is it made by?'
 
"'By an officer of your staff, sir, Captain Kennedy.'
 
"'Where is he?'
 
"'He is coming down with the Toledo column, sir.'
 
"'Please send for him at once,' he said. 'One of the others should have been detached for that service. He is just the man we want here.'
 
"Accordingly we sent for you, and here you are."
 
"This is an excellent report of yours, sir," the duke said, when the colonel introduced Desmond to him. "As we came down, I noticed that the roads had, in many cases, been thoroughly repaired at the points mentioned in your report as being particularly bad, and the bridges in many places greatly strengthened. Had it not been for that, I do not know how I should have got my guns along.
 
"And now, sir, I want to ask you a few questions as to the road on the other side. By your report, I see that you consider the road through Campo Mayor to be the only one by which an army could move, and that a large body of workmen must be employed to make the other road fit for the passage of cannon."
 
He then asked a number of questions concerning this road.
 
"I see," he said, "you have marked several places, in your report, where an enemy coming down that road could post themselves strongly, and others which might be defended to advantage by us."
 
"Yes, sir; but of course, the suitability of those places would depend largely upon the respective strength of the armies."
 
The marshal nodded approvingly.
 
"From all I hear from our agents in Lisbon," he said, "the enemy's forces will be superior to our own in numbers, but the main portion are Portuguese, who have shown very little fight, hitherto. Their cavalry are almost entirely Portuguese. The only really fighting portion of their forces are the English and Dutch, who are most formidable foes; but against these we have our French regiments, on whose bravery we can rely. Were it not that I think the Portuguese will probably, as at the battle of Almanza, fly as soon as the engagement begins, I should fall back and take up a strongly defensive position. As it is, in spite of their superior numbers, I think we can meet them on an equal field."
 
The conversation lasted over an hour, and then Desmond retired, leaving Colonel Villeroy with the marshal. As he left the house, an officer standing at the door seized his hand.
 
"My dear Kennedy," he said, "who would have thought that we should have met again here!"
 
Desmond staggered back. He could not, for a moment, believe the evidence of his eyes and ears.
 
"Why, O'Neil, I thought you were dead."
 
"I am worth a good many dead men, yet," the other one laughed. "Let us go into this wine shop and crack a bottle. We can then talk over matters quietly."
 
"And O'Sullivan, is he alive too?" Desmond asked.
 
"No, poor fellow. He has never been heard of since that tremendous licking we got. There is not a shadow of hope."
 
Then many questions were asked, on both sides; and when these were answered, Desmond said:
 
"Now about yourself, O'Neil. I thought I was the only one that got through safe."
 
"So you were, for the other three of us were all on our backs."
 
"But we did not hear of you as among the prisoners, of whom a list was furnished by Marlborough."
 
"No; the name of Patrick O'Neil did not appear. I was shot through the body, and during the night I lay insensible, but in the morning I opened my eyes and began to think. It seemed to me that the name was not one that would be likely to please. In the first place, because it was evident, by my age, that I was not one of the Limerick men; in the next place, because of that little matter of my escape from the jail in London. I had no fear of being shot. I should be a prisoner of war, but I should not be likely to be over kindly treated, and when they exchanged prisoners I should certainly not be one of those sent back. You see, what with Blenheim and Ramillies and Oudenarde, they had taken ten of our officers for every one of their officers captured by us, so I thought it best to pass as a French officer.
 
"It was easy to do so, as my French was good enough to pass anywhere, and, you see, I had on a French staff uniform. Luckily my horse had been shot at the same time as I was. He was lying dead beside me, and within reach of my arm, so that I was able to lean over and get my flask from one of the holsters. I had a terrible thirst on me, and could have drunk a barrel.
 
"As I heard no firing, I knew that the fighting was over; and in two or three hours a party came along with a stretcher, having a doctor with them. When he saw that my eyes were open, and that I was alive, he examined my wound and shook his head.
 
"'He is badly hit,' he said, 'but you may as well carry him in.'
 
"So they took me into Oudenarde, which had been turned into a big hospital.
 
"'You are not to speak,' the doctor said to me, before they lifted me up. 'You must keep yourself perfectly quiet.'
 
"When they got me into the hospital, they found a hole behind as well as in front, which I heard one of the doctors say was a good thing. They dressed the wounds and left me. I could see by their faces, the next time they came, that they were surprised to see me alive. One of them said to the other:
 
"'The bullet must have passed through him without touching any vital point. He may do yet.'
 
"He bent down, and asked me in French what my name was, and I said 'Victor Dubosc, lieutenant;' so they stuck a card with my name over my bed, and asked me no more questions. I lay there for six weeks, and then I was well enough to get up and walk about.
 
"Three weeks later, I went down with some other convalescents to Ostend, and there we were embarked, and taken to Portsmouth. Then we were put in boats and rowed to Porchester, which is a place at the end of a sort of lake behind Portsmouth. There was an old castle there, with a mighty high wall, enclosing a lot of ground, where there were huts--rows of them--all filled with our prisoners. Some of the huts were a little better than others, and these were for the use of officers. A regiment of soldiers was in tents outside the walls, and a hundred men were always on guard with loaded muskets.
 
"I said to myself, often and often, 'If Kennedy were here, he would soon hit upon some plan for getting away;' but for the life of me, I could not see how it was to be managed. It was a dull time, I can tell you. The food was bad, and the cooking was worse. Only a few officers were there, most of them being sent to some place a long distance inland; but, as we were all wounded, I suppose they thought that the loss of blood would keep us quiet.
 
"One of the officers, having a little money hidden about him, bought a pack of cards from an English soldier, and we passed most of our time playing; but it was poor work, for we had nothing to play for. At last, I said to myself, 'Patrick O'Neil, there must be an end of this or your brain will go altogether. It is not worth much at the best of times, or it would have thought of some plan for getting out of this place before now.'
 
"At last, I hit on a plan. It was a dangerous one, there was no doubt of that; but as I was desperate, I did not think much of the danger. The worst they could do was to shoot me, which I suppose is what they would have done. My idea was to pounce suddenly on one of the sentries, who kept guard all night; to gag him, and tie him up, before he could give the alarm; and then to dress up in his clothes, and take his matchlock.
 
"But the difficulty was, what was I to do next. The soldiers came on duty for twelve hours, coming in at six in the morning and going out at six in the evening.
 
"It was clear to me that it could only be done in the dark, and I had to wait for nearly two months. It was the beginning of October before it was dark enough, at six in the morning, for me to fall in with the others and march out without being noticed.
 
"At last, the time came. I stole out of my hut an hour before the change would be made, and crept along quietly, till I heard a sentry marching up and down between our huts and those of the soldiers. I had torn up a blanket into strips, and twisted them together to make ropes; and with these in one hand, and a big piece ready to shove into his mouth in the other, I stole up close to him; and when he turned his back to me, I jumped upon him. Luckily, instead of carrying the musket on his shoulder, he had it under his arm, so that I was able to seize the lock with one hand, and clutch him by the throat with the other. I gripped pretty hard, and the man, in half a minute, slipped down to the ground.
 
"Before he could recover, I had stripped off his coatee and cloak; then I tied his hands and feet, fastened the gag firmly in his mouth, and dragged him in between two huts, where he would not be found till morning. Then I took off my own coat and threw it over him, for the night was chilly, and put on his cloak and shako, and took his place.
 
"In half an hour I heard a tramp of men, and knew the relief had entered. Then there was a bugle call, and two or three sentries passed towards the entrance. I ran on, too. When they fell in, I managed to get in the last section. Some sergeants ran down the line counting the men, and reported that all were present. The gates were opened, and we marched out.
 
"As soon as we got among the tents, we fell out, and I had no difficulty whatever in getting off without being observed. Leaving my musket and shako behind me, I went up a long lane which brought me on to the main road, crossed that, climbed a hill beyond, and came down into a wooded country.
 
"At the first cottage I came to, I stopped. A man and woman came out on my knocking. They looked kindly and good tempered, and I told them a pitiful story, about how I had been unjustly accused of striking an officer, and had been sentenced to two hundred lashes; and that I had managed, in the night, to cut a slit in the back of the guard tent and escape.
 
"As I had been walking along, a sudden thought had struck me. At Oudenarde, I was wearing the same boots I had worn when we were captured together. When we took the money out, we each left, if you remember, five pieces of gold in one of our boots, which I had never thought of till that day; and, as I came along, I opened the sole and took them out. It was a perfect godsend, as you may guess.
 
"The man and his wife expressed such sympathy that I did not hesitate to say: 'I want to get rid of my coatee, and of this cloak. The coatee would be of no use to you, and you had best burn it, but the cloak, if you alter it, might be useful; or, if you cut it up, will make a cover for your bed. I will give you that and a gold piece--it is a French one I got in the wars, but you can change it easily enough, when you go into the town marketing--if you will give me a suit of your clothes.'
 
"This the man readily consented to do, and the woman set before me a large bowl of milk, and some bread, which I ate as soon as I had put on a pair of breeches, smock, and broad hat. Now I felt perfectly safe. They might send news all over the country of the escape of a French officer, but as I had never spoken a word of English, from the time that I was taken, no one would suspect a countryman speaking English to be the man whom they were in search of.
 
"After leaving the cottage, I travelled quietly to Rye. I thought it best to go there, for it was likely that it would be difficult, elsewhere, for an unknown man to get a passage to France, and it struck me that the man who took us across before, would carry me over the first time he was going with despatches. I found him easily enough, and though I was not dressed quite in the same way as I was when we called on him before, he recognized me at once.
 
"'Another job for me?' he asked.
 
"'Not a special one,' I said. 'I am going across again, but there is no occasion for you to make a special trip, and indeed my employer forgot to give me an order upon you. I should have gone back, if I had remembered it, but I thought you would not mind giving me a passage the next time you sailed across.'
 
"As the man remembered that we had made ourselves pleasant on board, he agreed at once to take me, next time the boat should be going. I laid out a pound in getting a coat more suitable for travelling in France than the peasant's smock. Then I took a lodging in a small inn.
 
"Three days later, a messenger came down with an order for the man to take him across at once, and as the captain charged me nothing for my passage, I had enough left to pay for my place in a diligence, and on arriving in Paris duly reported myself, at the barracks, as having returned.
 
"My first enquiry, of course, was about you and O'Sullivan. I found that he had never been heard of, but that you had lost a hand, and had been promoted to a captaincy; had been very ill, and had gone to the south of France on sick leave.
 
"After I heard that, I remained for two or three months at the depot, and then learned that the Duke of Berwick had just arrived from Dauphiny. I at once went to see him. He told me he could not put me on his staff again, as his numbers were complete, but would give me a letter to the Duke of Orleans, asking him to employ me in that capacity. When I got down here, I found that the duke had left, and that the Marshal de Bay was in command.
 
"On reading Berwick's letter, he at once appointed me one of his aides-de-camp. You were away, I found to my great disappointment, and I was sent off into Catalonia, with orders for four battalions to be sent at once to Badajos. I arrived here yesterday, in time for the shindy."
 
"Fortunately, O'Neil, I do not think there is much fear of another Oudenarde. There is no royal duke here, to interfere with our general; and the Portuguese are not to be compared with the Hanoverians, and Dutch, and the other allies that fought against us there."
 
"I hear, from the others, that you have been occupied in reconnoitring the country."
 
"Yes, and I was captured, but was fortunately able to give them the slip."
&n............