ad grew fainter and fainter; when at last he dared to
peer from the edge of the little wood, the Englishman had disappeared.

For a couple of hours St. Georges urged the poor roadster to its best
speed, then slackened rein as the wayside track reached the bay of
Charenton. He was safe now from any recognition--or rather
exposure--the army of Bellefonds and all who might by chance have got
ashore from the destroyed fleet were far behind.

Yet he had been exposed to risks, too, on that ride. Once, near the
auberge he had fled from, a farmer riding along called to him to stop,
yelling at him to know why he was riding Dubois's horse; but his
presence of mind did not fail him, and he called back: "Ride on and
see! The French are defeated, the English have burned Barfleur and
destroyed La Hogue!" and ere the man, whose terror-stricken face he
long remembered, could speak again, he was far away from him.

Also he more than once passed deserters from the army--men who no
sooner saw another in a uniform riding as though for life, than they
fled away into woods and copses or over fields, imagining that he was
in pursuit of them. And, once, he again come in contact with two
together whose faces he thought he remembered as he leaped on board a
French man-of-war the evening before--men who looked up at him with
startled faces and oaths upon their lips--did they recognise him as he
dashed by them?

But at last he had outdistanced all who might have escaped from La
Hogue; his way lay along a sandy sea-blown road, at the sides of which
were fields of millet, sanfoin, and sometimes, though not often,
wheat. And ahead of him, against the bright May sky, he saw the tower
and two high spire steeples of the ancient cathedral of Sainte Marie
at Bayeux.

He eased his horse at a pool of fresh water, descended from it and
removed the coarse saddle, and, while it drank eagerly, rubbed its
sides and back.

"Good horse!" he said.--"good horse! I have been a hard taskmaster and
a stranger to you to-day. Heaven knows I would not have urged you thus
but for my necessity. And you have served me bravely, all rough bred
as you are. Well, we will not part now, and some day, may be, I can
find out your owner--that Dubois the farmer spoke of--and repay him
for the friend I stole from him."

And he sat down by the animal's side for half an hour, and then,
walking with the reins in his hand and carrying the saddle to ease it,
he followed the road to