Page:Narrative of a captivity and adventures in France and Flanders between the years 1803 and 1809.djvu/124

 long village, and having travelled three or four miles, felt ourselves so excessively thirsty, that we stopped to drink at a ditch; in the act of stooping, a sudden flash of lightning, from the southward, so frightened us, (supposing it to be the alarm-gun,) that, instead of waiting to drink, we ran for nearly half an hour. We stopped a second time, and were prevented by a second flash, which alarmed us even more than the first, for we could not persuade ourselves it was lightning, though no report was heard. Following up the road in quick march, our attention was suddenly arrested by a draw-bridge, which being indicative of a fortified place, we suspected a guard-house to be close at hand, and were at first apprehensive of meeting with a serious impediment; but observing the gates to be open, we concluded that those at the other extremity would be also open, and therefore pushed forward. We drank at the pump, in the square, when it was recollected that this was the little town of St. Amand. Directing our course by the north star, which was oc