“I am sorry to have startled you, madame,” said I. “I chanced to overhear your remark, and I could not refrain from offering you my assistance.” I bowed as I spoke. You know my bow, and can realize what its effect was upon the lady.
“I am much indebted to you, sir,” said she. “We have had a terrible journey since we left Tavistock. Finally, one of our wheels came off, and here we are helpless in the middle of the moor. My husband, Sir Charles, has gone on to get help, and I much fear that he must have lost his way.”
I was about to attempt some consolation, when I saw beside the lady a black travelling coat, faced with astrakhan, which her companion must have left behind him. It was exactly what I needed to conceal my uniform. It is true that I felt very much like a highway robber, but then, what would you have? Necessity has no law, and I was in an enemy’s country.
“I presume, madame, that this is your husband’s coat,” I remarked. “You will, I am sure, forgive me, if I am compelled to—” I pulled it through the window as I spoke.
I could not bear to see the look of surprise and fear and disgust which came over her face.
“Oh, I have been mistaken in you!” she cried. “You came to rob me, then, and not to help me. You have the bearing of a gentleman, and yet you steal my husband’s coat.”
“Madame,” said I, “I beg that you will not condemn me until you know everything. It is quite necessary that I should take this coat, but if you will have the goodness to tell me who it is who is fortunate enough to be your husband, I shall see that the coat is sent back to him.”
Her face softened a little, though she still tried to look severe. “My husband,” she answered, “is Sir Charles Meredith, and he is travelling to Dartmoor Prison, upon important Government business. I only ask you, sir, to go upon your way, and to take nothing which belongs to him.”
“There is only one thing which belongs to him that I covet,” said I.
“And you have taken it from the carriage,” she cried.
“No,” I answered. “It still remains there.”
She laughed in her frank English way.
“If, instead of paying me compliments, you were to return my husband’s coat—” she began.
“Madame,” I answered, “what you ask is quite impossible. If you will allow me to come into the carriage, I will explain to you how necessary this coat is to me.”
Heaven knows into what foolishness I might have plunged myself had we not, at this instant, heard a faint hallo in the distance, which was answered by a shout from the little postboy. In the rain and the darkness I saw a lantern some distance from us, but approaching rapidly.
“I am sorry, madame, that I am forced to leave you,” said I. “You can assure your husband that I shall take every care of his coat.” Hurried as I was, I ventured to pause a moment to salute the lady’s hand, which she snatched through the window with an admirable pretence of being offended at my presumption. Then, as the lantern was quite close to me, and the postboy seemed inclined to interfere with my flight, I tucked my precious overcoat under my arm, and dashed off into the darkness.
And now I set myself to the task of putting as broad a stretch of moor between the prison and myself as the remaining hours of darkness would allow. Setting my face to the wind once more, I ran until I fell from exhaustion. Then, after five minutes of panting among the heather, I made another start, until again my knees gave way beneath me. I was young and hard, with muscles of steel, and a frame which had been toughened by twelve years of camp and field. Thus I was able to keep up this wild flight for another three hours, during which I still guided myself, you understand, by keeping the wind in my face. At the end of that time I calculated that I had put nearly twenty miles between the prison and myself. Day was about to break, so I crouched down among the heather upon the top of one of those small hills which abound in that country, with the intention of hiding myself until nightfall. It was no new thing for me to sleep in the wind and the rain, so, wrapping myself up in my thick warm cloak, I soon sank into a doze.
But it was not a refreshing slumber. I tossed and tumbled amid a series of vile dreams, in which everything seemed to go wrong with me. At last, I remember, I was charging an unshaken square of Hungarian Grenadiers, with a single squadron upon spent horses, just as I did at Elchingen. I stood in my stirrups to shout “Vive l’Empereur!” and as I did so, there came the answering roar from my hussars, “Vive l’Empereur!” I sprang from my rough bed, with the words still ringing in my ears, and then, as I rubbed my eyes, and wondered if I were mad, the same cry came again, five thousand voices in one long-drawn yell. I looked out from my screen of brambles, and saw in the clear light of morning the very last thing that I should have either expected or chosen.
It was Dartmoor Prison! There it stretched, grim and hideous, within a furlong of me. Had I run on for a few more minutes in the dark, I should have butted my shako against the wall. I was so taken aback at the sight, that I could scarcely realize what had happened. Then it all became clear to me, and I struck my head with my
