t
it must indeed be a slow fox which they hoped to catch. However, it was
their affair, not mine, and soon they had all passed my window and were
out of sight. I waited and I watched, ready for any chance which might
offer.

Presently an officer, in a blue uniform not unlike that of our flying
artillery, came cantering down the road--an elderly, stout man he was,
with grey side-whiskers. He stopped and began to talk with an orderly
officer of dragoons, who waited outside the inn, and it was then that I
learned the advantage of the English which had been taught me. I could
hear and understand all that was said.

"Where is the meet?" said the officer, and I thought that he was
hungering for his bifstek. But the other answered him that it was near
Altara, so I saw that it was a place of which he spoke.

"You are late, Sir George," said the orderly.

"Yes, I had a court-martial. Has Sir Stapleton Cotton gone?"

At this moment a window opened, and a handsome young man in a very
splendid uniform looked out of it.

"Halloa, Murray!" said he. "These cursed papers keep me, but I will be
at your heels."

"Very good, Cotton. I am late already, so I will ride on."

"You might order my groom to bring round my horse," said the young
General at the window to the orderly below, while the other went on down
the road.

The orderly rode away to some outlying stable, and then in a few minutes
there came a smart English groom with a cockade in his hat, leading
by the bridle a horse--and, oh, my friends, you have never known the
perfection to which a horse can attain until you have seen a first-class
English hunter. He was superb: tall, broad, strong, and yet as graceful
and agile as a deer. Coal black he was in colour, and his neck, and his
shoulder, and his quarters, and his fetlocks--how can I describe him all
to you? The sun shone upon him as on polished ebony, and he raised his
hoofs in a little playful dance so lightly and prettily, while he tossed
his mane and whinnied with impatience. Never have I seen such a mixture
of strength and beauty and grace. I had often wondered how the English
Hussars had managed to ride over the chasseurs of the Guards in the
affair at Astorga, but I wondered no longer when I saw the English
horses.

There was a ring for fastening bridles at the door of the inn, and the
groom tied the horse there while he entered the house. In an instant I
had seen the chance which Fate had brought to me. Were