Through shallow fords we splashed, fords mercifully low in the August drought, else must we have been swept away in the darkness; under overarching woods of denser, solemn night; past the stubble of new-reaped cornfields, a golden glimmer even in the mirk, through villages silent and evil-smelling in the dank heat of the night; now by a hill, now by a valley, now by a flat wilderness of whin-brakes, until the east lightened and a coolness rose with a wind before the sun. Then, when I was no further than Ligueil, the dawn came. The dawn, and Plessis ten leagues away. Doggedly, despairingly, I pushed forward at little better than a walk. How could Anita, poor beast, go faster? The day before she had made a march of forty miles, and the nine hours struggle to keep her feet in the darkness had worn her out. A walk! The impatience of my heart burned like fire roaring down the wind. Stiff though I was, it was a relief to dismount and plod through the dust, a relief to feel the stones rough and cutting under my feet. Let those who have sat by the last awful struggle of one they love judge how bitter were my five hours' agony with the sun upon my back. I had failed, and the price of failure was a holiday-spectacle in the market-place of Poictiers. Jan Meert's express was hours ahead of me, and I was too wise or too weary to hope for the King's mercy. As the day broadened life crept out to its labour; peasants in the fields, women by the village wells, children in the doorways, stood and stared as I passed. On the roads, especially as I drew near Tours, the trickle of travel thickened, forcing a march in the cool of the morning. Merchants with their bales, men-at-arms, a noble and his train of hired bullies; and though these did more than stare, their coarse jests failed to penetrate the armour of my despair. The whiteness of my face, and perhaps the fire in my eyes, saved me from any insult worse than words; for once, when one who would have called himself a gentleman seized my rein, I had but to throw back my hair and look him in the eyes. With a "Curse her, she's mad!" he snatched back his hand, and I rode on unmolested. But even these five hours came to an end. At the gates of Plessis there was an astonishing disorder. Had I been coifed, court clad, and dainty as a lady fresh from Tours, I might have passed without notice in the confusion. But the dust-sown woman on the broken horse, her riding chair awry, her skirts rent, her hair in straggled wisps below her shoulders, could not go unchallenged. "Monsieur de Commines, take me to Monsieur de Commines; on the King's service!" and I held out the ring. "Oh, sirs, sirs! for the love of God, make haste!"