At last the diligence was nearly ready. The luggage was stowed in the boot, and two great mail baskets were swung and padlocked on the bar underneath. The four horses were brought out and put to, and driver, guard, and officer retired to the hostel for a parting glass. An impulse seized me then to slip out of the crowd and creep forward on the road under the deep shadow of the wall. Far I could not go, I knew, for at the barrier I should be detected and stopped. But the coach, having been so carefully inspected at its starting-point, would, I judged, be allowed through the barrier without further challenge. It should not be my fault if I did not go through with it. The rain was pouring in sheets, and on such a night no one would be likely to walk abroad for pleasure. Nor between the hostel and the barrier was it probable that any sentinel would patrol the empty street. At any rate I met nothing, except a market-cart coming in, the occupants of which were too busy discussing the handling they had received at the barrier to look under the shadow of the wall for a vagrant boy. At last I found a convenient place, where the road was dark as night, and where a sharp turn made it likely that the horses would be taken slowly past. Here I crouched, dripping from head to foot, for a long ten minutes. Then my heart beat as I heard the dull rumble of the wheels, and caught the lurid glare of the two lamps coming. By the brief glance I got I saw that the guard (as I had hoped) had crouched in for shelter under the driver's hood, and that the sole occupant of the back _coupe_ was buried under his tarpaulin. Now was my time. I had carefully selected my point of attack. The two baskets I spoke of underneath the coach swung on double iron bars, and between the two, could I only scramble there, there was just room for me to perch, completely hidden, at any rate while night lasted, from the keenest of eyes. I saw the driver throw himself back and pull in the reins for the corner, and in the momentary check of the speed I darted out from my hiding-place, and clambered in under the tail of the coach and reached the bars between the baskets. But for Providence I should have fallen between the wheels. As it was, the start forward of the horses carried me dragging on my toes twenty yards before I could haul myself up and lie face upwards across the bars, with my head on one basket, my feet on the other, and my nose almost rubbing the bottom of the coach. I have, I own, travelled many a mile more comfortably, but few more happily. I had but one terror, and that was short-lived. At the barrier the coach pulled up, and the guard got down to hand in his papers, and to help himself to a spare wrapper out of the boot. Then, with a cheerful "Hi! hi!" he clambered back to his place, the barrier swung open, and we were out of Brest in the open country outside.