astily drawing from his breast pocket the letter intrusted to him, he
examined the superscription. It was addressed simply to the Marquis of
Scarland, and must surely be a document of immense significance, or
the young Viscount would not have brought him all the way from London
to act as messenger rather than intrust it to the post. Each instant
Dale's ideas became clearer; each instant his heart throbbed with a
deeper anxiety. At last, when the four-wheeler disappeared from sight
round an angle of the rain-soaked boulevard, he yielded to impulse and
ran into the hotel. French people are early risers, but the visitors
to Calais that morning were astir at an hour when most of the hotel
staff were still sound asleep. A night porter, however, was awaiting
him at the entrance, and Dale forthwith engaged in a valiant struggle
with the French language in the effort to ascertain, first, whether
the man possessed a bicycle, and, secondly, whether he would lend it.
The Frenchman, of course, broke into a voluble statement out of all
proportion to the demand, but the production of a British sovereign
seemed to interpret matters satisfactorily, because a bicycle was
promptly produced from a shed in the rear of the building.

Dale handed the man the sovereign, jumped on the machine, and rode off
rapidly in the direction taken by the cab. He had no difficulty in
turning the corner round which it had vanished, but a little farther
on he erred in thinking that it had gone straight ahead, since the
driver had really turned to the right again in order to keep clear of
the fortifications. Dale traveled at such a pace that the first long
stretch of straight road opening up before his eyes convinced him of
his blunder when no cab was in sight. He raced back, dismounted at
the crossing, examined the road for wheel-marks, and soon was in the
saddle again. He was destined to be thus bothered three times in all,
but, taught wisdom by his initial mistake, he never passed a crossroad
without searching for the recent tracks of wheels.

The rain helped him wherever the roadway was macadamized, but
the paved _routes militaires_ with which Calais abounds offered
difficulties that caused many minutes of delay. At last, he found
himself in the open country, scorching along a sandy road that
traversed the low dunes lying between the town of Calais and Cape Gris
Nez. It was not easy to see far ahead owing to the rain and mist, and
he had covered a mile