French authority,
hastened to the railway station. He had friends there.

"Quick," he said, "it is dark, but it does not matter, it is even all
the better. Find me some one who has been a smuggler, and who will help
me to pass the frontier."

They brought him a small lad of eighteen; fair-haired, ruddy, hardy, a
Walloon[35] and who spoke French.

"What is your name?" said Cournet.

"Henry."

"You look like a girl."

"Nevertheless I am a man."

"Is it you who undertake to guide me?"

"Yes."

"You have been a smuggler?"

"I am one still."

"Do you know the roads?"

"No. I have nothing to do with the roads."

"What do you know then?"

"I know the passes."

"There are two Custom House lines."

"I know that well."

"Will you pass me across them?"

"Without doubt."

"Then you are not afraid of the Custom House officers?"

"I'm afraid of the dogs."

"In that case," said Cournet, "we will take sticks."

They accordingly armed themselves with big sticks. Cournet gave fifty
francs to Henry, and promised him fifty more when they should have
crossed the second Custom House line.

"That is to say, at four o'clock in the morning," said Henry.

It was midnight.

They set out on their way.

What Henry called the "passes" another would have called the
"hindrances." They were a succession of pitfalls and quagmires. It had
been raining, and all the holes were pools of water.

An indescribable footpath wound through an inextricable labyrinth,
sometimes as thorny as a heath, sometimes as miry as a marsh.

The night was very dark.

From time to time, far away in the darkness, they could hear a dog bark.
The smuggler then made bends or zigzags, turned sharply to the right or
to the left, and sometimes retraced his steps.

Cournet, jumping hedges, striding over ditches, stumbling at every
moment, slipping into sloughs, laying hold of briers, with his clothes
in rags, his hands bleeding, dying with hunger, battered about, wearied,
worn out, almost exhausted, followed his guide gaily.

At every minute he made a false step; he fell into every bog, and got up
covered with mud. At length he fell into a pond. It was several feet
deep. This washed him.

"Bravo!" he said. "I am very clean, but I am very cold."

At four o'clock in the morning, as Henry had promised him, they reached
Messine, a Belgian village. The two Custom House lines had been cleared.
Cournet had nothing more to fear, either from the C