rs,
moving about on the crest of the hill, the sun slanting on stirrup
metal and lance-tip. As he was about to resume his meditations,
something about these lancers caught his eye--something that did
not seem quite right--he couldn't tell what. Of course they were
French lancers, they could be nothing else, here in the rear of the
army, but still they were rather odd-looking lancers, after all.

The eyes of a mariner and the eyes of a soldier, or of a man who
foregathers with soldiers, are quick to detect strange rigging.
Therefore Jack unslung his glasses and levelled them on the group
of mounted men, who were now moving towards him at an easy lope,
their tall lances, butts in stirrups, swinging free from the
arm-loops, their horses' manes tossing in the hill breeze.

The next moment he seized his bridle, drove both spurs into his
horse, and plunged ahead, dropping pipe and flask in the road
unheeded. At the same time a hoarse shout came quavering across
the fields, a shout as harsh and sinister as the menacing cry of
a hawk; but he dashed on, raising a whirlwind of red dust. Now he
could see them plainly enough, their slim boots, their yellow
facings and reverses, the shiny little helmets with the square
tops like inverted goblets, the steel lances from which black and
white pennons streamed.

They were Uhlans!

For a minute it was a question in his mind whether or not they
would be able to cut him off. A ditch in the meadow halted them
for a second or two, but they took it like chamois and came
cantering up towards the high-road, shouting hoarsely and
brandishing their lances.

It was true that, being a non-combatant and a foreigner with a
passport, and, furthermore, an accredited newspaper correspondent,
he had nothing to fear except, perhaps, a tedious detention and a
long-winded explanation. But it was not that. He had promised to
be at Morteyn by night, and now, if these Uhlans caught him and
marched him off to their main post, he would certainly spend one
night at least in the woods or fields. A sudden anger, almost a
fury, seized him that these men should interfere with his promise;
that they should in any way influence his own free going and coming,
and he struck his horse with the riding-crop and clattered on along
the highway.

"Halt!" shouted a voice, in German--"halt! or we fire!" and again
in French: "Halt! We shall fire!"

They were not far from the road now, but he saw that he could
pass the