, and it was these which had torn off one of the
wheels of the coach and upset us. As to this reptile, who had acted the
priest so cleverly and had told me so much of his parish and his mother,
he, of course, had known where the ambuscade was laid, and had attempted
to put me beyond all resistance at the moment when we reached it.

I cannot tell you how frantic their rage was when they drew him out of
the coach and saw the state to which I had reduced him. If he had not
got all his deserts, he had, at least, something as a souvenir of his
meeting with Etienne Gerard, for his legs dangled aimlessly about, and
though the upper part of his body was convulsed with rage and pain, he
sat straight down upon his feet when they tried to set him upright. But
all the time his two little black eyes, which had seemed so kindly and
so innocent in the coach, were glaring at me like a wounded cat, and he
spat, and spat, and spat in my direction. My faith! when the wretches
jerked me on to my feet again, and when I was dragged off up one of the
mountain paths, I understood that a time was coming when I was to need
all my courage and resource. My enemy was carried upon the shoulders of
two men behind me, and I could hear his hissing and his reviling, first
in one ear and then in the other, as I was hurried up the winding track.

I suppose that it must have been for an hour that we ascended, and what
with my wounded ankle and the pain from my eye, and the fear lest this
wound should have spoiled my appearance, I have made no journey to which
I look back with less pleasure. I have never been a good climber at any
time, but it is astonishing what you can do, even with a stiff ankle,
when you have a copper-coloured brigand at each elbow and a nine-inch
blade within touch of your whiskers.

We came at last to a place where the path wound over a ridge, and
descended upon the other side through thick pine-trees into a valley
which opened to the south. In time of peace I had little doubt that the
villains were all smugglers, and that these were the secret paths by
which they crossed the Portuguese frontier. There were many mule-tracks,
and once I was surprised to see the marks of a large horse where a
stream had softened the track. These were explained when, on reaching a
place where there was a clearing in the fir wood, I saw the animal
itself haltered to a fallen tree. My eyes had hardly rested upon it,
when I recognized the great black limbs