Jack had intended to make his way back to the Posada de Oriente at Medina, and there obtain a rest and a change of mules. But having got a fresh steed by Pepito’s fortunate intervention, he changed his plan, and decided to make straight for Salamanca by Carpio and Cantalapiedra. He had still fifty miles to ride, and after his experience with the foundered mule he doubted whether one animal would carry him the whole way. But there was an off chance that another mount might be procurable in case of need, and his mission was urgent. He therefore pushed on, avoiding Medina, and taking a short cut for Carpio. It was four o’clock when he reached that town. He halted for half an hour to bait his mule and snatch a meal, then he resumed his journey, and an hour and a half after dark he entered the wretched streets of Pedroso. He had ridden but a few yards into the town when a figure on horseback moved silently out from the shadow of a church and stood full across his path. He pulled up, and then a guttural and husky voice addressed him roughly: "Who go zere? Qui va la? Quien vive?" Jack laughed quietly. "Is the caballero himself the allied army?" he said in his best Castilian. "Donnerwetter noch einmal!" growled the horseman, adding in bad Spanish: "Give the word, and quickly." "You have the advantage of me, my good friend," responded Jack in English, "so you had better take me to your captain." Jack had now recognized the man by his uniform as a trooper in the 3rd Light Dragoons of the King’s German Legion. The dragoon grunted in surprise on hearing English, and, wheeling his horse beside Jack’s mule, he laid one hand on his rein, and with the other held his carbine close to the new-comer’s head, and so escorted him to the inn where the cavalry patrol was quartered. The officer there seated at ease, a burly moustachioed Hessian, looked up as the trooper clanked into the room, holding Jack by the sleeve. "A stranger, Herr Rittmeister," he said in German, "who cannot or will not give the countersign." "Not such a terrible stranger, Captain Werder," said Jack in English, recognizing the German as the officer through whom he had obtained his horse in Salamanca. A few words sufficed to explain his presence in such guise, and half an hour afterwards, mounted on a spare horse luckily at hand, he set off on the last eighteen miles that lay between him and his destination.