And again the vehicle started off at a rapid trot. Though night had really come now, thanks to the clearness of the air and the innumerable stars, it was not very dark. On reaching the foot of the hill the postilion stopped his panting horses, and, after springing to the ground, approached the carriage door, and said: "This is such a steep hill, bourgeois, that I always walk up to make it easier for my horses." "Very well, my boy," replied the occupant of the vehicle, tranquilly. The postilion walked along beside his horses for a few seconds, then gradually slackened his pace, thus allowing them to get a short distance ahead of him. Just then, Russell and Pietri emerged from behind a clump of bushes on the roadside, and approached the postilion. The latter, as he walked along, had removed his braided jacket, red waistcoat, and top-boots. The Englishman, who had likewise divested himself of his outer apparel, slipped on the jacket, plunged his feet into the high boots, and seized the hat, after which the postilion, smiling at what he considered an excellent joke, handed his whip to Russell, remarking: "It is too dark for the gentleman to see anything, so when you mount my horse I'll get up on the rack behind, with your companion." "Yes, and when we reach the next station I will get down, and you can put on your own clothes again, and I mine. And now here is the twenty francs I promised you." And slipping a gold piece in Jean Pierre's hand, Russell quickened his pace, and, overtaking the horses about twenty yards from the top of the hill, began to walk along beside them. It was now too dark for the traveller to perceive the substitution that had just been effected, but as the carriage reached the summit of the hill the occupant leaned out and said to the supposed postilion: "Don't forget to put on the brake, my lad." "I am going to do that now," answered the pretended postilion, in a disguised voice. Then slipping behind the vehicle, he said in a low tone to the Maltese and to Jean Pierre: "Get up behind and hold on tight. I'm going to put on the brake." The two men obeyed, while Russell rattled the chain of the brake, as if he were applying it to the wheel, but this was really only a pretence on his part; then vaulting into the saddle, he dug his spurs into his horse's flanks, and sent the carriage flying down the hill with frightful rapidity. "Good God! we are lost, and the milk drinker in the bargain," exclaimed Jean Pierre hearing the chain of the brake dragging along on the ground. "Your friend failed to put the brake on, after all." The Maltese, instead of answering the postilion, struck him such a violent blow on the head with the butt end of a pistol that Jean Pierre let go his hold on the rack and fell to the ground, while the carriage flew down the hill enveloped in a cloud of dust. CHAPTER VII. HOME PLEASURES.