ndstone,
who replied, vaguely:

"How do I know! I followed a crowd of good people. . . ."

"Good looters and murderers!"

"Oh, do you think so? Yes, it may be . . . it seemed to me, sometimes.
. . . But I was so absorbed! So many observations to make! Besides, I
was not alone . . . at least, on the last day."

"Really? Who was with you?"

"Dolores. We made the whole of the last stage together; and it was she
who brought me here. She left me when we came in sight of the
barricades. For that matter, it was impossible to enter this enclosure
and examine the phenomena more closely. Directly I went forward,
pom-pom went the machine-gun! At last, suddenly, the crowd burst the
dike. But what puzzles me now is that these eruptions seem already to
be decreasing in violence, so that we can foresee the end of them very
shortly. True, on the other hand. . . ."

But Simon was not listening. He had caught sight, in the arena, of the
captain commanding the detachment, with whom he had not been able to
exchange more than a few words that morning, as the officer had at
once gone in pursuit of the fugitives. Simon led Isabel to the tent,
set aside for her, in which Lord Bakefield was resting, and joined the
captain, who cried:

"We are straightening things out, M. Dubosc. I've sent a few squads
north; and all these bands of cut-throats will fall into my hands or
into those of the English troops, who, I'm told, have arrived. But
what savages! And how glad I am that I came in time!"

Simon thanked him in the name of Lord Bakefield and his daughter.

"It's not I whom you should thank," he replied, "but that strange
woman, whom I know only by the name of Dolores, and who brought me
here."

The captain related how he had been operating since three o'clock in
the out-posts of Boulogne, where he was garrisoned, when he received
from the newly-appointed military governor an order instructing him to
move towards Hastings, to take possession of the country as far as
mid-way between the two coasts and to put down all excesses
ruthlessly.

"Well, this morning," he said, "when we were patrolling two or three
miles from there, I saw the woman ride up at a gallop. She told me in
a few words what was happening inside these barricades, which she had
not been able to pass, but behind which Simon Dubosc was in danger.
Having succeeded in catching a horse, she had come to beg me to go to
your assistance. You can imagine how quickly I marched