joyed.
And though I then rode warily, and where I could not carry terror,
had all to fear myself, there was nothing secret or underhand in my
business.

It was very different now. During the first few hours of our flight from
Chize I experienced a painful excitement, an alarm, a feverish anxiety
to get forward, which was new to me; which oppressed my spirits to the
very ground; which led me to take every sound borne to us on the wind
for the sound of pursuit, transforming the clang of a hammer on the
anvil into the ring of swords, and the voices of my own men into those
of the pursuers. It was in vain mademoiselle rode with a free hand, and
leaping such obstacles as lay in our way, gave promise of courage and
endurance beyond my expectations. I could think of nothing but the three
long day's before us, with twenty-four hours to every day, and each hour
fraught with a hundred chances of disaster and ruin.

In fact, the longer I considered our position--and as we pounded along,
now splashing through a founderous hollow, now stumbling as we wound
over a stony shoulder, I had ample time to reflect upon it--the greater
seemed the difficulties before us. The loss of Fresnoy, while it freed
me from some embarrassment, meant also the loss of a good sword, and we
had mustered only too few before. The country which lay between us and
the Loire, being the borderland between our party and the League, had
been laid desolate so often as to be abandoned to pillage and disorder
of every kind. The peasants had flocked into the towns. Their places
had been taken by bands of robbers and deserters from both parties,
who haunted the ruined villages about Poitiers, and preyed upon all who
dared to pass. To add to our perils, the royal army under the Duke of
Nevers was reported to be moving slowly southward, not very far to the
left of our road; while a Huguenot expedition against Niort was also in
progress within a few leagues of us.

With four staunch and trustworthy comrades at my back, I might have
faced even this situation with a smile and a light heart; but the
knowledge that my four knaves might mutiny at any moment, or, worse
still, rid themselves of me and all restraint by a single treacherous
blow such as Fresnoy had aimed at me, filled me with an ever-present
dread; which it taxed my utmost energies to hide from them, and which I
strove in vain to conceal from mademoiselle's keener vision.

Whether it was this had an effect upo