t into a canter, and the pace was pretty smart. But it did not equal
Taltavull's impatience, and every minute or so out went his head and
beard bidding the driver to hasten and hasten; and the driver, crouched
there in his little penthouse, rumbled out fierce _arr-e-ees_, and
prodding forth a blue-sleeved arm beneath his blanket, lashed the
scraggy mules into a gallop.

"Good for any one with a torpid liver this," said Haigh.

"Senor," exclaimed the anarchist, "how can you have the face to speak
of trivialities at such a moment? Is it nothing to you what we have at
stake?"

"On the contrary, it is decidedly something. But I don't let that
confounded Recipe worry me unduly, as you appear to do. Cospatric, give
me a match--there's a good fellow."

The old man glowered on him sourly, and turned to urge the driver for
increased speed.

We flew past the brown vine-stumps, and the mule-gins above the wells,
and the many ducts and gutters which drain the marshes, our animals
steaming as they strained at the traces, and the driver jerking about
like some frenzied jumping-jack as he forced them on. The pace was
almost racing pace, and to be in a race always warms one's blood. I
began to share Taltavull's excitement. He was looking at his watch ever
and anon, at each time crying that we should have scarcely time to meet
the train. And yet it was evident that the mules could go no faster.

I cast about me for some means of increasing the pace, and I was not
long in hitting off an idea. It was not very brilliant, but I thought
it worth sharing, and so spoke,--

"Look here, Monsieur Taltavull: if we chuck some of the ballast
overboard, the mules will have less to drag, and we shall go faster.
The only thing is, have we enough money with us to afford it?"

"Explain, explain! I cannot understand your barbarous sentences."

"Why, we can smash off the lid and most of the sides of this ramshackle
Noah's ark till it's as light as a Kentucky trotting wagon. The only
thing is, we must pay the driver cash down, or he may object and stop,
and we shall lose time that way."

The anarchist unbuttoned his waistcoat, and, ripping away the lining,
brought out a sheaf of notes. "A man," said he, "who never knows one
minute whether he may not be arrested and have his pockets cleared the
next, should never be without these. Senor Briton, use your big
strength and tear away all that seems you good. I will satisfy the
driver."

"Hooray!" s