went back and reported his absence; lastly, he began to wonder whether
Mr Lipscombe would come with the _Kestrel_ and try to find him.

"Not much good to come with the cutter," he thought as drew a long
breath; "he would want a troop of light horse if I'm being taken inland,
as it seems to me I am."

Then he began to wonder what would be done with him, whether Sir Henry
Norland knew of his capture. Perhaps it was by Sir Henry's orders.

"Well, if it is," he said, half aloud, "if he don't behave well to me he
is no gentleman."

He began musing next about Adela, and thought of how she had altered
since the old days when Sir Henry was a quiet country gentleman, and had
not begun to mix himself up with the political questions of the day.

"Oh!" said Hilary at last, "this is horribly tiresome and very
disgusting. I don't know that I should have much minded being made
prisoner by a French ship, and then sent ashore, so long as they treated
me well; but to be kidnapped like this by a beggarly set of smugglers is
too bad."

"Well," he thought, "I don't see that I shall be very much better off if
I make myself miserable about my condition. I can't escape just at
present; they are evidently not going to kill me. That's not likely.
Why should they? So I shall just make the best of things, and old
Lipscombe must grumble as long as he likes."

Phew! It was very hot, and he was very weary. The kicking of the
donkey and the sound of the blows had ceased to amuse him. He was so
sore with the jolting that he told himself he could not get any worse.
And still the cart went on, jolt, jolt, till a curious sensation of
drowsiness came over him, and before he was aware that such a change was
approaching he dropped off fast asleep, to make up for the wakefulness
and excitement of the past night, the long and arduous walk of that
morning, and the exhaustion produced by the jolting and shaking to which
he had been subjected at intervals for the past two hours. During that
time he had striven very hard to guess in which direction he was being
taken, and wished he had known a little more of the locality inland, his
geographical knowledge being confined to the points, bays, cliffs,
villages, churches, and ports along the coast.

It was no slow dozing off and re-awaking--no softly passing through a
pleasant dreamy state into a light sleep, for Nature seemed to say, with
stern decision, that his body and mind had borne as great a st