For half an hour after the Polish leader had rolled himself in his cloak and gone off to sleep, the boys chatted together as to the course they should adopt, and finally resolved to throw in their fortunes with those of the Polish patriots. They saw that it would be impossible for them to make their way on to the frontier alone, and considered that their chance of life was no less if captured in action by the Russians than if found in a village with a number of wounded insurgents. The wrongs of Poland were in those days a subject which moved men's hearts in England, and the midshipmen rejoiced at the thought of striking a blow in so good a cause.

These were the reasons which, in talking the matter over, they assigned to each other, but in reality their love of adventure and excitement in no slight degree influenced them. To have taken part in a real Polish insurrection, to join in guerilla attacks and fierce onslaughts on Russian columns, to live a wild life in the woods, were things that appealed strongly to the imagination of the midshipmen; and in the morning they expressed to Stanislas Chernatony their willingness to join him, and fight against the Russians until an opportunity occurred for them to cross the frontier and rejoin the forces before the Sebastopol.