and I had just reached it and was plunging through the undergrowth when I heard the clash of steel as the men scrambled over the wall like as I had done, and their voices calling one to another as they asked whether they saw any man. So dark was it in the copse that I could not see my horse, and I doubt whether I should have found him in time if he, hearing my approach, had not whinnied and so led me in the right direction. I unloosed his bridle in haste, but had no sooner vaulted into the saddle than a man ran up behind me, and cried out to the others that he had me. I set spurs to my horse, but at the moment of his springing forward I felt a sharp pang in the calf of my left leg, and the man let forth a vehement oath when the horse carried me beyond his reach. Bending low in the saddle to shun the branches of the trees, the which swept my cheeks and dealt me many smarting wounds, I put my horse to the gallop, incommoded by finding that one of my stirrups was gone, and knowing never a whit whether I was riding towards Arques or from it. I came out of the copse into a road, and hearing no sounds of pursuit,—indeed scarce expecting any, since the men were not mounted—I gave the horse his head, and breasting an incline we came to a small hamlet, where I did not scruple to knock at one of the cottages until a window was opened, and a peasant sleepily demanded what I lacked. From him I learnt that I was but a stone’s throw from the Bethune river, which gave me great comfort, and so I spurred on, and by and by came to the bridge by Archelles, and so on until I gained the marshy plain below Arques where the King was encamped, never stopping until I was challenged by the outposts. [Illustration: I FELT A SHARP PANG IN THE CALF OF MY LEFT LEG] The day was now breaking, and since my news was important—both that which I brought from Hilary Rawdon and that which I had discovered for myself—I demanded to be led instantly to Rosny, with whom I had some slight acquaintance, having been commended to him in a letter by my Lord Seymour when I joined Hilary Rawdon’s troop. Rosny at first seeing me broke into a fit of laughter, the which was not to be wondered at, seeing that my garments were drenched through and through, and my face was muddy both from splashes and from my fall, and withal I walked somewhat stiffly from the wound in my leg. But he looked grave enough when I told him in brief what news I carried, and he would have me accompany him at once to the King, whom he doubted not to find already astir, though the morning was yet young. (I had not then heard the saying of Pope Sixtus V, who foretold that the Bearnais would come off conqueror because he did not remain so long abed as the Duke of Mayenne at table; but I knew of the King’s habit of rising early, the which was indeed a cause of grumbling among the sluggards of his Court.)