not only by the sympathy which her courage and
her apparent distress excited; he was conscious of some appeal,
something in her which seemed to touch him directly and with a sort of
familiarity, although he had certainly never seen her in his life
before. He was pondering on this when one of the horses, frightened by
the noise and rush of the water, reared up, while the other made a
violent effort to turn itself, its comrade, and the carriage round, and
head back again for Sasellano. The Captain sprang up, shouted, plied
the whip; the driver stood on the trunk and yelled yet more vigorously;
her Excellency clutched the rail with her hand. And in they went.

"The peculiarity of this stream," began the Captain, "lies not so much
in its depth as in--"

"The strength of the current," interposed his companion, nodding.

"You know it?" he cried.

"Very well," she answered, and she might have said more had not the
horses at this moment chosen to follow the easiest route, and headed
directly downstream. A shriek from the driver awoke Dieppe to the
peril of the position. He plied his whip again, and did his best to
turn the animals' heads towards the opposite bank. The driver showed
his opinion of the situation by climbing on to the top of the landau.

This step was perhaps a natural, but it was not a wise one. The roof
was not adapted to carrying heavy weights. It gave way on one side,
and in an instant the driver rolled over to the right and fell with a
mighty splash into the water just above the carriage. At the same
moment Dieppe contrived to turn the horses in the direction he aimed
at, and the carriage moved a few paces.

"Ah, we move!" he exclaimed triumphantly.

"The driver 's fallen off!" cried the lady in alarm.

"I thought we seemed lighter, somehow," said Dieppe, paying no heed to
the driver's terrified shouts, but still urging on his horses. He
showed at this moment something of a soldier's recognition that, if
necessary, life must be sacrificed for victory: he had taken the same
view when he left M. Guillaume in order to pursue Paul de Roustache.

The driver, finding cries useless, saw that he must shift for himself.
The wheel helped him to rise to his feet; he found he could stand. In
a quick turn of feeling, he called, "Courage!" Dieppe looked over at
him with a rather contemptuous smile.

"What, have you found some down at the bottom of the river? Like truth
in the well?" he asked. "Catc