those
four words--an order as clear as if it had come straight from the firm
lips with the cold grey eyes looking into mine. My troopers might wait
for their horses, the dead Marquis might lie where I had laid him
amongst the heather, but if the mare and her rider had a breath left in
them the papers should reach the Prince that night.

I should not have feared to ride by the road through the wood, for I
have learned in Spain that the safest time to pass through a guerilla
country is after an outrage, and that the moment of danger is when all
is peaceful. When I came to look upon my map, however, I saw that Hof
lay further to the south of me, and that I might reach it more directly
by keeping to the moors. Off I set, therefore, and had not gone fifty
yards before two carbine shots rang out of the brushwood and a bullet
hummed past me like a bee. It was clear that the night-riders were
bolder in their ways than the brigands of Spain, and that my mission
would have ended where it had begun if I had kept to the road.

It was a mad ride, that--a ride with a loose rein, girth-deep in heather
and in gorse, plunging through bushes, flying down hill-sides, with my
neck at the mercy of my dear little Violette. But she--she never
slipped, she never faltered, as swift and as surefooted as if she knew
that her rider carried the fate of all Germany beneath the buttons of
his pelisse. And I--I had long borne the name of being the best
horseman in the six brigades of light cavalry, but I never rode as I
rode then. My friend the Bart had told me of how they hunt the fox in
England, but the swiftest fox would have been captured by me that day.
The wild pigeons which flew overhead did not take a straighter course
than Violette and I below. As an officer, I have always been ready to
sacrifice myself for my men, though the Emperor would not have thanked
me for it, for he had many men, but only one--well, cavalry leaders of
the first class are rare.

But here I had an object which was indeed worth a sacrifice, and I
thought no more of my life than of the clods of earth that flew from my
darling's heels.

We struck the road once more as the light was failing, and galloped into
the little village of Lobenstein. But we had hardly got upon the
cobblestones when off came one of the mare's shoes, and I had to lead
her to the village smithy. His fire was low, and his day's work done, so
that it would be an hour at the least before I could hop