"I thought that we had settled that," replied the Dutchman promptly. I felt they were all looking at me. "I look at it this way," I said, reddening. "Wesel is not far from Emmerich by the road. Should we not have an excellent chance of reaching it before our pursuers come up?" "You might reach it," Master Lindstrom said gravely. "Though, again, you might not." "And, Wesel once reached," I persisted, "there is less fear of violence being attempted there than in Santon. It is a larger town." "True," he admitted. "But it is just this. Will you be able to reach Wesel? It is the getting there--that is the difficulty; the getting there before you are caught." "If we have a good start, why should we not?" I urged; and urged it the more persistently, the more I found them opposed to it. Naturally there ensued a warm discussion. At first they all sided against me, save of course Anne, and she sat silent, though she was visibly agitated, as from minute to minute I or they seemed likely to prevail. But presently when I grew warmer, and urged again and again the strength of Wesel, my own party veered round, yet still with doubt and misgiving. The Dutchman shrugged his shoulders to the end and remained unpersuaded. But finally it was decided that I should have my own way. We would go to Wesel. Every one knows how a man feels when he comes victorious out of such a battle. He begins on the instant to regret his victory, and to see the possible evils which may result from it; to repent the hot words he has used in the strife and the declarations he has flung broadcast. That dreadful phrase, "I told you so!" rises like an avenging fury before his fancy, and he quails. I felt all this the moment the thing was settled. But I was too young to back out and withdraw my words. I hoped for the best, and resolved inwardly to get the party mounted the moment we reached Emmerich. I soon had the opportunity of proving this resolution to be more easily made than carried out. About three o'clock we reached the little town dominated, as we saw from afar, by an ancient minster, and, preferring not to enter it, landed at the steps of an inn a quarter of a mile short of the gates, and marking a point where we might take the road to Wesel, or, crossing the river, the road to Santon. Master Lindstrom seemed well known, but there were difficulties about the horses. The German landlord listened to his story with apparent sympathy--but no horses! We could not understand the tongue in which the two talked, but the Dutchman's questions, quick and animated for once, and the landlord's slow replies, reminded me of the foggy morning when in a similar plight we had urged the master of the _Lion's Whelp_ to put to sea. And I feared a similar result. "He says he cannot get so many horses to-night," said Master Lindstrom with a long face. "Offer him more money!" quoth the Duchess. "If we cannot have horses until the morning, we may as well go on in the boat," I urged.