Page:A French Volunteer of the War of Independence.djvu/127

Rh There did not seem to me a pin to choose between either fate, but his last hour had not yet come. This unlucky fellow had a mania for suicide. In 1792, after the 10th August, he was an officer in the Constitutional Guards, and when the "patriots" came to drag him away to the Abbaye, he escaped from their hands by passing his sword through his body. At the end of three days,—which seemed very long, I must admit,—the tempest ceased, and during the rest of the voyage we had favourable weather.

But heaven had yet another trial in store for us. Whilst we were at dinner one day, thinking no more of bad weather, but of France, from which we were now only some five hundred miles distant, one of the crew entered, and asked to speak to M. de la Fayette. He took the Marquis on one side, and told him a good deal in a very few words; namely, that the English sailors had laid a plot to kill us, take possession of the vessel, and turn her head towards England. This was to be effected at five o'clock in the evening.