"They can be brought while the men are making ready," replied the officer; and, with a polite bow, he left them still under guard. The wine and the sardines d'Olonne were brought and rapidly consumed. Their horses' feet were heard before the door, and, mounting, Pierrot and Master Ned, with four soldiers accompanying them, rode away in the direction of Nantes. It is a long and rather dreary ride at all times, and to Edward it was particularly unpleasant, for he had to remember a fact which the reader has probably forgotten, namely, that people who took advantage without right of other people's safe-conducts were in those days very frequently hanged. Now, Master Ned had a mortal aversion to hemp. All depends upon the application of things. An old saw well applied is excellent, detestable when wrongly introduced. A Burgundy-pitch plaster on the chest is a capital remedy for incipient bronchitis, but has quite a contrary effect when applied to the mouth and nose. It is all the same with hemp. Used in rigging a ship, it is all very well; in the abstract it is a soft though somewhat tenacious fibre, which would not much hurt a fly; but when twisted into several strands and used as a tight cravat it is unpleasant, and often dangerous. In this light it was viewed by Edward Langdale; but he had run a good many hair's-breadth risks since he had been Lord Montagu's page, and the idea of the hemp did not exclude from his mind the idea of Lucette. (There are two "ideas" in the last sentence, which the verbal critics may call tautologous; but I will let them both stand, for it were well if there were as many ideas in most people's noddles.) However, as it is a very dreary road from Mauzé toward Nantes, and as the reflections of poor Edward Langdale were drearier still, I will not pause upon the details, but merely say that thought after thought followed each other through his head,--sometimes of the danger which he himself ran, sometimes of the dangers which surrounded Lucette, and sometimes of the chances of making his escape. This continued for some three hours, during which time the body was suffering hardly less than the mind. Barely recovered from severe illness, he had quitted Rochelle too early: he had since undergone the fatigues of a storm at sea, a long anxious ride, a short imprisonment, and now a three hours' journey, with little food and only one hour's sleep out of thirty-six, upon the banks of the Sevre Niortaise. As day began faintly to dawn, fatigue and drowsiness overpowered him; and twice he swung to the side of his horse as if he were about to fall.