The stranger did not see me. I am quite sure that he did not see me. He turned his horse back along the road for a few snorting paces. Then with a sounding slap on his shoulder he drove him at a fast pace along the turf towards me. I heard the brute whinny. He was uneasy; he was trying to shy; he was twisting away, trying to avoid the strange thing which lay there. I hid my head no longer. I saw the horse above me. I saw the rider glaring down. He was going to ride over me. I saw his face, a grey blur under his hat. The horse seemed to be right on top of me. I started up to my feet with a cry. The horse shied into the road, with a violence which made the rider rock. Then, throwing up his head, he bolted towards the town, half mad with the scare. Fifty yards down the road he tore past Mr. Jermyn, who was trotting back to pick me up. We heard the frantic hoofs pass away into the night, growing louder as the duffle wraps were kicked off. Perhaps you have noticed how the very sound of the gallop of a scared horse conveys fear. That is what we felt, we two conspirators, as we talked together, hearing that clattering alarm-note die away. “Martin,” said Mr. Jermyn. “That was a woman. She chuckled as she galloped past me.” “Are you sure, sir?” I asked, half-hoping that he might be right. I felt my heart leap at the thought of being in another adventure with the lady. “Yes,” he said, “I'm quite sure. Now we must be quick, so as to give her no time in the town.” When I had mounted, we forced the horse to a gallop till we were within a quarter of a mile of the walls, where we pulled up at a cross-roads. “Get down, Martin,” he said. “We must enter the town by different roads. Turn off here to the right. Then take the next two turns to the left, which will bring you into the square. I shall meet you there. Take your time. There's no hurry.” About ten minutes later, I was stopped in a dark quiet alley by a hand on the back of my neck. I saw no one. I heard no noise of breathing. In the pitch blackness of the night the hand arrested me. It was like my spine suddenly stiffening to a rod of ice. “Quiet,” said a strange voice before I could scream. “Off with those Dutch clothes. Put on these. Off with those sabots.” I was in a suit of English clothes in less than a minute. “Boots,” the voice said in my ear. “Pull them on.” They were long leather knee-boots, supple from careful greasing. In one of them I felt something hard. My heart leapt as I felt it. It was a long Italian stiletto. I felt myself a seaman indeed, nay, more than a seaman, a secret agent, with a pair of such boots upon me, “heeled,” as the sailors call it, with such a weapon. “Go straight on,” said the voice.