In a moment he perceived that it was a race between him and the man at the end of the line. If he could get beyond the point at which the trooper’s present line of march would intersect his own path, he had a reasonable chance of safety. To his dismay he noticed that the man was edging still farther from his comrades, as though suspecting that he was not taking a sufficiently wide sweep. Harry was now panting with his exertions, and in a bath of sweat; he could run no faster over the heavy ground; he felt that the game was up, wondering indeed that the "view halloo!" had not already been given. Plunging blindly, despairingly, on, he was almost at his last gasp when he suddenly fell headlong. He had stumbled into an irrigation ditch. It was overgrown with weeds; in the stress of war the culture of the fields had been neglected; the bottom was dry. The weeds grew high on either side; Harry scrambled on hands and knees into the rank vegetation, and lay still, his flanks heaving, his breath coming and going in quick pants which he felt must be audible yards away. For some seconds he heard nothing but his deep breathing and the thumping of his heart; then the beat beat of hoofs drawing nearer. A horseman passed within a few yards of him, luckily on the right. Another few seconds, and the Frenchman ejaculated an angry "Nom d’un tonnerre!" as his horse struck the ditch and stumbled. He called to his left-hand man, and Harry, cautiously peering through the enveloping weeds, saw him alight and begin to examine the ditch. But he moved away from the fugitive. As soon as he was at a safe distance, Harry, who had by this time recovered his breath, crept out and stealthily crawled along the watercourse on hands and knees. For some minutes he continued this arduous progress, rejoicing to hear the men’s voices receding moment by moment. Then, judging it safe, he rose and broke into a trot, left the ditch by and by, and continued to pound over fields and paths, through hedges and over ditches, for what seemed to him miles. Then he stopped. All sounds had now ceased save the chirp of crickets, the raucous cry of the corn-crake, and the croak of frogs. He had lost his way; he knew not whether he was near a highway; he was dead tired, his knees trembling under him. But he remembered Sherebiah spending his lonely vigil in the town-house of Breda, waiting for the dawn of his last day, and he set his lips and breathed a vow that the faithful fellow should not die if the last ounce of energy would save him. *CHAPTER XIV* *Harry Rides for a Life* The Hour before Dawn—A Trivial Interruption—Recollections—Another Memorandum—The Road to Breda—The Town Clock—Seven Minutes—Against Time—Orange Wins