"Flies! To judge by my head he must have fancied he saw a bullock before him. Lucky I dodged somewhat, or I'd have no head for flies to settle on. And who is the gentleman with the voice of thunder?" "That's Watson." "It's a good voice, but there's no music in it. You have never heard him sing, eh?" "Aye, but I have. He can roar a fine stave about wine and women." "I'll go and ask him to favour us," said Martin, jerking his horse forward. "Stay where you are," and the man's hand shot out to the horse's bridle. "Very well, very well, if you like my company so much. It's a strange thing that they should put wine and women into the same song." "Strange, you fool! Strong enough and beautiful enough, are they not both intoxicating?" "I know not," Martin answered. "I have no experience of strong women." "Strong wine and beautiful women," I said. "Did you. I am rather dull of hearing." "You're a dull-witted fellow altogether to my thinking." "It is most true, sir. I am so dull that I cannot see the wit in your conversation." "I can cuff almost as vigorously as Sayers," said the man a little angrily, when his companion on the other side of Martin laughed. "I will believe it without demonstration," said Martin, cringing in his saddle. "You frighten me, and now I have lost my stirrups. I am no rider to get on without them. I shall fall. Of your kindness, gentlemen, find me my stirrups." "Plague on you for a fool," said one. "A blessing on you if you get my feet into the stirrups." "Stop, then, a moment." Martin pulled up, and the cavalcade went on. The two men, one on either side, brought their horses close to Martin's, and bent down to find the stirrups. Martin suddenly gave both horses the spur in the flanks with a backward fling of his heels, and at the same time struck each man a heavy blow on his lowered head. The horses sprang aside, one rider falling in the roadway, the other stumbling with his animal into the ditch by the roadside. The next instant Martin had whipped round his own horse, and was galloping back along the road. It had been the work of a few seconds, and a few seconds more elapsed before the cavalcade came to a standstill. Then a voice roared orders, half a dozen shots sang about the fugitive, and there were galloping horses quickly in pursuit. Expecting the shots, Martin had flung himself low on the horse's neck. The animal, frightened by the swinging stirrups and driven by the spur, plunged madly along the road. So long as the road was straight, Martin let the horse go, but at the first bend, when there was no chance of his pursuers seeing him, he checked the animal a little, slipped from his back, and with a blow sent him careering riderless along the road.