track.

As the wood grew first thinner and then smaller with distance, he could
see the sunlit slopes beyond it and above it; and across these was
still moving the square black mob like one monstrous beetle. In the very
strong sunlight and with his own very strong eyes, which were almost
telescopic, Syme could see this mass of men quite plainly. He could see
them as separate human figures; but he was increasingly surprised by the
way in which they moved as one man. They seemed to be dressed in dark
clothes and plain hats, like any common crowd out of the streets; but
they did not spread and sprawl and trail by various lines to the attack,
as would be natural in an ordinary mob. They moved with a sort of
dreadful and wicked woodenness, like a staring army of automatons.

Syme pointed this out to Ratcliffe.

"Yes," replied the policeman, "that's discipline. That's Sunday. He is
perhaps five hundred miles off, but the fear of him is on all of them,
like the finger of God. Yes, they are walking regularly; and you bet
your boots that they are talking regularly, yes, and thinking regularly.
But the one important thing for us is that they are disappearing
regularly."

Syme nodded. It was true that the black patch of the pursuing men was
growing smaller and smaller as the peasant belaboured his horse.

The level of the sunlit landscape, though flat as a whole, fell away on
the farther side of the wood in billows of heavy slope towards the
sea, in a way not unlike the lower slopes of the Sussex downs. The
only difference was that in Sussex the road would have been broken and
angular like a little brook, but here the white French road fell sheer
in front of them like a waterfall. Down this direct descent the cart
clattered at a considerable angle, and in a few minutes, the road
growing yet steeper, they saw below them the little harbour of Lancy and
a great blue arc of the sea. The travelling cloud of their enemies had
wholly disappeared from the horizon.

The horse and cart took a sharp turn round a clump of elms, and the
horse's nose nearly struck the face of an old gentleman who was sitting
on the benches outside the little cafe of "Le Soleil d'Or." The
peasant grunted an apology, and got down from his seat. The others also
descended one by one, and spoke to the old gentleman with fragmentary
phrases of courtesy, for it was quite evident from his expansive manner
that he was the owner of the little tavern.

He was a