y to start,
to the astonishment of all the steward was not to be found. To
peremptory calls for him no answer came; and a hurried search through the
hamlet proved equally fruitless. The only person who had seen him since
his interview with Tavannes turned out to be M. de Tignonville; and he
had seen him mount his horse five minutes before, and move off--as he
believed--by the Challans road.

"Ahead of us?"

"Yes, M. le Comte," Tignonville answered, shading his eyes and gazing in
the direction of the fringe of trees. "I did not see him take the road,
but he was beside the north end of the wood when I saw him last.
Thereabouts!" and he pointed to a place where the Challans road wound
round the flank of the wood. "When we are beyond that point, I think we
shall see him."

Count Hannibal growled a word in his beard, and, turning in his saddle,
looked back the way he had come. Half a mile away, two or three dots
could be seen approaching across the plain. He turned again.

"You know the road?" he said, curtly addressing the young man.

"Perfectly. As well as Carlat."

"Then lead the way, Monsieur, with Badelon. And spare neither whip nor
spur. There will be need of both, if we would lie warm to-night."

Tignonville nodded assent and, wheeling his horse, rode to the head of
the party, a faint smile playing about his mouth. A moment, and the main
body moved off behind him, leaving Count Hannibal and six men to cover
the rear. The mist, which at noon had risen for an hour or two, was
closing down again, and they had no sooner passed clear of the wood than
the trees faded out of sight behind them. It was not wonderful that they
could not see Carlat. Objects a hundred paces from them were completely
hidden.

Trot, trot! Trot, trot! through a grey world so featureless, so unreal
that the riders, now dozing in the saddle, and now awaking, seemed to
themselves to stand still, as in a nightmare. A trot and then a walk,
and then a trot again; and all a dozen times repeated, while the women
bumped along in their wretched saddles, and the horses stumbled, and the
men swore at them.

Ha! La Garnache at last, and a sharp turn southward to Challans. The
Countess raised her head, and began to look about her. There, should be
a church, she knew; and there, the old ruined tower built by wizards, or
the Carthaginians, so old tradition ran; and there, to the westward, the
great salt marshes towards Noirmoutier. The