"But we must not be caught," I returned, deftly rolling up the wigs and secreting them in the branch of a tree, where they looked like a new kind of bird's nest. "Look through that opening there between those willows. Don't you see the molten gleam of water under the summer sun?" "Yes," replied Casteno joyously, rising on his knees and stretching his neck. "It's a stream sure enough--perhaps a river--with plenty of water space, for I am sure I distinguish a current in it running steady and strong." "Now let us make for that, then," I urged, "and hail the first boat that passes. Let us pretend we are soldiers, and have overstayed our leave, and that we shall get fined if we don't hasten pell-mell back to the town." "What town?" queried Casteno ruefully; whereat we both laughed. It certainly did seem preposterous for us not to know the name of the country we were in. Yet, truthfully enough, we didn't--we hadn't the ghost of an idea. As luck would have it, however, we found several boats moored close to the trees by the side of the water, and in charge of them was a sharp-looking lad about fourteen years of age. "Got any tubs for hire, sonny," said Casteno cheerfully, walking up to the youngster and tapping him familiarly on the shoulder. "What does your mother want to wash?" promptly returned the lad, and in a moment the three of us were on the best of terms. Acting on an impulse of my own I took charge of the conversation, and pretended that we were soldiers who had got sick of barrack life, and had deserted from some important depot, and were anxious to get into hiding in the nearest town. Now in most lads there exists a very genuine sympathy with the hunted of all descriptions, and a loyalty, too, which no ordinary bribe or threat would cause them to break. As a consequence, he promised to take us off in one of the boats and to hide us under some cushions and sail sheets as he punted us down stream to "a capital nest I know," he explained, "behind the kilns of the porcelain works." "But the town--what is its name?" I queried, with a grimace. "Why, Worcester, of course," the lad replied. "Didn't you see it on the milestones?" "We were in too great a hurry to look," chimed in the Spaniard at once. "Why, we don't even know what all those thousands of people are doing here in these grounds. We have simply bolted as hard as we could through the streets." "Then you didn't even see the flying machine fall?" cried the lad, his eyes wide with excitement. "Not a bit of it," returned I, with more truth than the boy possibly could have expected.