"But how?" she gasped, "I do not understand."

"Yet, 'tis simple enough, m'dear," he said with that funny, half-shy,
half-inane laugh of his, "you see! when I found that that brute
Chauvelin meant to stick to me like a leech, I thought the best thing I
could do, as I could not shake him off, was to take him along with me.
I had to get to Armand and the others somehow, and all the roads were
patrolled, and every one on the look-out for your humble servant. I knew
that when I slipped through Chauvelin's fingers at the 'Chat Gris,' that
he would lie in wait for me here, whichever way I took. I wanted to keep
an eye on him and his doings, and a British head is as good as a French
one any day."

Indeed it had proved to be infinitely better, and Marguerite's heart was
filled with joy and marvel, as he continued to recount to her the daring
manner in which he had snatched the fugitives away, right from under
Chauvelin's very nose.

"Dressed as the dirty old Jew," he said gaily, "I knew I should not be
recognized. I had met Reuben Goldstein in Calais earlier in the evening.
For a few gold pieces he supplied me with this rig-out, and undertook to
bury himself out of sight of everybody, whilst he lent me his cart and
nag."

"But if Chauvelin had discovered you," she gasped excitedly, "your
disguise was good . . . but he is so sharp."

"Odd's fish!" he rejoined quietly, "then certainly the game would have
been up. I could but take the risk. I know human nature pretty well by
now," he added, with a note of sadness in his cheery, young voice, "and
I know these Frenchmen out and out. They so loathe a Jew, that they
never come nearer than a couple of yards of him, and begad! I fancy that
I contrived to make myself look about as loathsome an object as it is
possible to conceive."

"Yes!--and then?" she asked eagerly.

"Zooks!--then I carried out my little plan: that is to say, at first
I only determined to leave everything to chance, but when I heard
Chauvelin giving his orders to the soldiers, I thought that Fate and I
were going to work together after all. I reckoned on the blind obedience
of the soldiers. Chauvelin had ordered them on pain of death not to
stir until the tall Englishman came. Desgas had thrown me down in a heap
quite close to the hut; the soldiers took no notice of the Jew, who had
driven Citoyen Chauvelin to this spot. I managed to free my hands from
the ropes, with which the brute had trussed me; I alway