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: