But even here I was deceived of my security; for my passage having been, I suppose, easily discovered, there wanted not a full minute ere I heard an halloo! and a scraping of feet beneath the arched way, by which I perceived I was hotly followed. I stumbled to my feet straightway and fled westward up the street, while in my ears rang the alarm: "Stop thief! Jesuit! Hold, in the Queen's Name!" which, the passengers taking it up, and themselves incontinently joining in the pursuit, made my hopes of safety and my little remnant of strength to shrink together utterly, like a scroll of parchment in the fire. I knew not how far I had gone, nor whither I had come, for all was strange to my disordered vision, but I know now that I had won nigh to the standard upon Cornhill (having turned to my right hand up Gracechurch Street); and holding my pursuers a little in check by repeated doublings, I found myself free to take refuge within a certain yard giving upon the public way and close against a tavern that is called the Leaden Porch. But fearing to remain openly in this place for any man to apprehend me, I cast about for some means of concealment, for I could go no further; and there being by good hap a cart standing under the arch in the entry (the carter having doubtless betaken himself to the tavern, as is the custom of such men), I got me up into it, painfully crawling beneath the load it carried, which was, methought, something oddly protected by a frame of timber hung about with linen-stuff or such-like, that I skilled not to discover the use of; and here I lay close, until very soon, as well from mere exhaustion as from a despairing indifference to the event, I fell asleep. No thought of the money I had been so near to recovering disturbed my repose, nor indeed for three full days after did I so much as remember to have left the treasure bags behind me in the hurry of my flight. CHAPTER XVII HOW I FOUND AN OLD FRIEND IN A STRANGE PLACE, AND HOW PTOLEMY RENEWED HIS STUDY OF THE LATIN TONGUE I was in the midst of a most excellent and comforting dream of Idonia, to whom I was again happily united, and we (if I rightly call it to mind), Duke and Duchess of Salamanca or of some place like-sounding, when I was roughly awakened by the jogging forward of the cart, to which succeeded that a head was thrust in betwixt the curtains of my extemporary great bed, and a voice cried: "Woe worth the day! what gallows'-food is here?" Making no question but that I was arrested, yet being still bedrowsed by sleep, I felt for my sword to deliver it up, but finding it not, said very stately: "Master Corregidor of Biscay, I yield myself prisoner," and so lay quiet, expecting what he should do further.