r boasts, and came to the ground too.

The lad who came out of the barn to meet me told me that an hour since a
soldier had gone through at a hand's pace bound for the coast, where
already, it was said, the Spaniard had landed and was devouring the land
like locusts. Of women, either to-day or for many a day, he had seen or
heard nothing.

My faithful beast was too feeble, even after a halt, to carry me
farther, and I had perforce to proceed on foot. My one hope was that
ere long the Captain might find himself in a like plight. But that was
not to be for many an hour yet.

Towards night the wind, which had been blowing in gusts over the hill-
tops and along the valleys, gathered into a gale; and in it I could hear
the distant boom of surf on an iron-bound coast. Ever and again I met
country folk hurrying inland, with now and then a soldier in their
company. And once, as I passed a lonely moor, there slunk past me a
fellow who by his swarthy face and black flashing eyes I knew to be a
Spaniard.

As hour passed hour through the night the storm raged fiercer, till
presently I could scarce make head against it and sank for an hour on
the turf, praying only that this weariness might befall mine enemy also.

When at dawn I struggled to the hill-top and looked out, I dreaded to
find him vanished. But no. My prayer must surely have been answered,
for he staggered on scarce a mile ahead of me down towards the valley.

Twas a narrow valley, with a swampy tract below, and rising again
sharply to the hill opposite. Half-way along that hill, through a
narrow gap, I, standing on higher ground, could catch a glimpse of the
grey ocean beyond, sending its white horses in on the land, and moaning
with a cry that mingled dismally with the rush of the wind. Surely our
long journey was near its end now.

Looking again towards the gap, I perceived--what my enemy below must
have missed--the form of a man who stood there, motionless, clear cut
against the sky, with his back on us as he gazed seaward. He was too
far off for me to see if he were a soldier or only a peasant. Yet I
remember marking that he was great of stature; and as he stood there,
with his hair floating in the wind, he seemed some image of a giant god
set there to stand sentinel and brood over the wild landscape.

Then, as the sun broke out from behind the sweeping clouds, it flashed
on a sword in his hand, and I concluded this must be an English soldier
pla