it from the carriage,' she cried.

'No,' I answered. 'It still remains there.'

She laughed in her frank English way.

'If, instead of paying me compliments, you were to return my husband's
coat--' she began.

'Madame,' I answered, 'what you ask is quite impossible. If you will
allow me to come into the carriage, I will explain to you how necessary
this coat is to me.'

Heaven knows into what foolishness I might have plunged myself had we
not, at this instant, heard a faint halloa in the distance, which was
answered by a shout from the little post-boy. In the rain and the
darkness, I saw a lantern some distance from us, but approaching
rapidly.

'I am sorry, madame, that I am forced to leave you,' said I. 'You can
assure your husband that I shall take every care of his coat.' Hurried
as I was, I ventured to pause a moment to salute the lady's hand, which
she snatched through the window with an admirable pretence of being
offended at my presumption. Then, as the lantern was quite close to me,
and the post-boy seemed inclined to interfere with my flight, I tucked
my precious overcoat under my arm, and dashed off into the darkness.

And now I set myself to the task of putting as broad a stretch of moor
between the prison and myself as the remaining hours of darkness would
allow. Setting my face to the wind once more, I ran until I fell from
exhaustion. Then, after five minutes of panting among the heather, I
made another start, until again my knees gave way beneath me. I was
young and hard, with muscles of steel, and a frame which had been
toughened by twelve years of camp and field. Thus I was able to keep up
this wild flight for another three hours, during which I still guided
myself, you understand, by keeping the wind in my face. At the end of
that time I calculated that I had put nearly twenty miles between the
prison and myself. Day was about to break, so I crouched down among the
heather upon the top of one of those small hills which abound in that
country, with the intention of hiding myself until nightfall. It was no
new thing for me to sleep in the wind and the rain, so, wrapping myself
up in my thick warm cloak, I soon sank into a doze.

But it was not a refreshing slumber. I tossed and tumbled amid a series
of vile dreams, in which everything seemed to go wrong with me. At last,
I remember, I was charging an unshaken square of Hungarian Grenadiers,
with a single squadron upon spent horses, just as I d