"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."

"You ran across to our lines?"

"But not exactly. One sees that I was yet in dirty German prison
clothes, and looked like an infantryman of the Boches, so that a poilu