such an adventure.
Since the chances were everywhere against me _if_ my enemies took
certain steps, well then, the only thing to do was to hope they did not
take them and dismiss that matter from my mind. I was taking the best
precautions I could think of, and the cooler I kept and better spirits
I was in, the more likely would luck be to follow me. For luck is a
discerning lady and likes those who trust her. Accordingly, the sun
being now out and the morning beautifully fine, I decided to enjoy the
scenery and make the most of a day ashore.

My first step was to ease up and ride just as slowly as I could, and
then I saw at once that I was doing the wisest thing in every way. I
made less noise and less dust, and was altogether much less of a
phenomenon. And this encouraged me greatly to keep to my new
resolution.

"If I leave it all to luck, she will advise me well!" I said to myself.

I headed coastwards through a wide marshy valley with but few houses
about, and in a short time saw the sea widening before me and presently
struck the road I was seeking. At the junction I obeyed an impulse,
and, jumping off my cycle, paused to survey the scenery. A fertile
vale fell from where I stood, down to a small bay between headlands.
It was filled with little farms, and all at once there came over me an
extraordinary impression of peacefulness and rest. Could it actually
be that this was a country at war; that naval war, indeed, was very
very close at hand, and beneath those shining waters a submarine might
even now be stealing or a loose mine drifting? The wide, sunshiny,
placid atmosphere of the scene, with its vast expanse of clear blue
sky, larks singing high up and sea-birds crying about the shore,
soothed my spirits like a magician's wand. I mounted and rode on again
in an amazingly pleasant frame of mind for a spy within a
hair's-breadth of capture, and very probably of ignominious death.

Up a long hill my engine gently throbbed, with moorland on either side
that seemed to be so desolated by the gales and sea spray that even
heather could scarcely flourish. I meant to stop and rest by the
wayside, but after a look at the map I thought on the whole I had
better put another mile or two between me and the lady with the baleful
eyes. At the top I had a very wide prospect of inland country to the
left, a treeless northern-looking scene, all green and brown with many
lakes reflecting the sunshine. A more hopele