space, and he rolled over to sleep.  But that troublesome man next took too much room.  Our Hirondelle planted him a kick in the middle of the back.  At which the man half waked and swore at him—­in German.  And dropped off to sleep again with his leg of a pig slung across Hirondelle’s chest.  At that second a star-shell lighted up the affair, and Hirondelle, staring with much interest, believe me, saw a trench filled with sleeping Boches.  To get out of that as quietly as might be was the game—­n’est-ce-pas, mes amis?  But not for Hirondelle.

“‘My colonel has a liking for prisoners,’ he reported later.  ’My captain’s orders were to conduct oneself tres comme il faut.  It is always comme il faut to please the colonel.  Therefore it seemed en regle to take a prisoner.  I took him. Le v’la.’

“What the fellow did was to wait till the Boche next door was well asleep, then slowly remove his rifle, then fasten on his throat with a grip which Hirondelle understood, and finally to overpower the Boche till he was ready enough to crawl out at the muzzle of Hirondelle’s rifle.”

There was a stir in the little group of guides, and from the shadows Rafael’s voice spoke.

“Mon colonel—­pardon!”

The colonel turned sharply.  “Who is that?”

“There were two Germans,” spoke the voice out of the shadows.

The colonel, too astonished to answer, stared.  The voice, trembling, old, went on.  “The second man waked and one was obliged to strangle him also.  One brought the brace to the captain at the end of the carabine—­rifle.”

“In heaven’s name who are you?” demanded the colonel.

From where old Rafael had been, bowed and limp in his humble, worn clothes, stepped at a stride a soldier, head up, shoulders squared, glittering eyes forward, and stood at attention.  It was like magic.  One hand snapped up in a smart salute.

“Who are you?” whispered the colonel.

“If the colonel pleases—­l’Hirondelle.”

I heard the colonel’s breath come and go as he peered, leaning forward to the soldierly figure. “Nom de Ciel,” he murmured, “I believe it is.”  Then in sharp sentences:  “You were reported killed.  Are you a deserter?”

The steady image of a soldier dropped back a step.

“My colonel—­no.”

“Explain this.”

Rafael—­l’Hirondelle—­explained.  He had not been killed, but captured and sent to a German prison-camp.

“You escaped?” the colonel threw in.

“But yes, my colonel.”

The colonel laughed.  “One would know it.  The clumsy Boches could not hold the Swallow.”

“But no, my colonel.”

“Go on.”

“One went to work before light, my colonel, in that accursed prison-camp.  One was out of sight from the guard for a moment, turning a corner, so that on a morning I slipped into some bushes and hid in a dugout—­for it was an old camp—­all day.  That night I walked.  I walked for seven nights and lay hid for seven days, eating, my colonel, very little.  Then, v’la, I was in front of the French lines.”