escaped in an
open boat, and I recollect playing that I was a target and standing up
to be shot at in a bright light. After that I woke up to the really
important things of life--among which supper is not one."

Langham and MacWilliams looked at each other doubtfully, and Langham
shook his head.

"Get down off that box," he commanded. "If you and Hope think this is
merely a pleasant moonlight drive, we don't. You two can sit in the
carriage now, and we'll take a turn at driving, and we'll guarantee to
get you to some place soon."

Clay and Hope descended meekly and seated themselves under the hood,
where they could look out upon the moonlit road as it unrolled behind
them. But they were no longer to enjoy their former leisurely
progress. The new whip lashed his horses into a gallop, and the trees
flew past them on either hand.

"Do you remember that chap in the 'Last Ride Together'?" said Clay.

"I and my mistress, side by side,
Shall be together--forever ride,
And so one more day am I deified.
Who knows--the world may end to-night."

Hope laughed triumphantly, and threw out her arms as though she would
embrace the whole beautiful world that stretched around them.

"Oh, no," she laughed. "To-night the world has just begun."

The carriage stopped, and there was a confusion of voices on the
box-seat, and then a great barking of dogs, and they beheld MacWilliams
beating and kicking at the door of a hut. The door opened for an inch,
and there was a long debate in Spanish, and finally the door was closed
again, and a light appeared through the windows. A few minutes later a
man and woman came out of the hut, shivering and yawning, and made a
fire in the sun-baked oven at the side of the house. Hope and Clay
remained seated in the carriage, and watched the flames springing up
from the oily fagots, and the boys moving about with flaring torches of
pine, pulling down bundles of fodder for the horses from the roof of
the kitchen, while two sleepy girls disappeared toward a mountain
stream, one carrying a jar on her shoulder, and the other lighting the
way with a torch. Hope sat with her chin on her hand, watching the
black figures passing between them and the fire, and standing above it
with its light on their faces, shading their eyes from the heat with
one hand, and stirring something in a smoking caldron with the other.
Hope felt an overflowing sense of gratitude to these simple