The stable-valet shook his head doubtfully. "Too much handicapped!" he murmured. "I might adopt a false name!" cried the Centaur, with a sudden inspiration. The idea took the stable-valet unawares. "Ah! there's something in that tip!" he said, half persuaded. "I will--I'll find one at once: and that'll break the neck of the whole difficulty! I have it--I'll call myself Hay--Andrew P. Hay. See?--Hay retains enough of my ancestral name; the Philip I'll retain as a reminder of my duty toward my race; while the Andrew will assert the manhood of part of me--eh?" "Ye--es," said Raiboskeles, reflecting, "I think I'll befriend that dodge at commanding prices." This _Rhodochroon Hen_ phraseology was oppressive at times; but his heart was in the right place. "Let us hail a steamer somehow," cried the Centaur (whom we will henceforth call Andrew P. Hay). The valet stood for a moment plunged in thought, smacking his bare leg with an olive-twig; then he said:-- "You'll have to travel as a gee. Half a sec!" [Illustration: "HE SLIPPED IT OVER THE HEAD OF HIS MASTER."] With incredible dexterity he plaited reeds from an adjacent stream into the form of a horse's head-and-neck cover; then respectfully slipped it over the human head and torso of his master. The part where the horse's nose should have been he had packed with grass: the head of Andrew P. Hay filled up the crown; while his human body made a fair show, beneath the covering, of being a horse's neck. The breadth where the man's shoulders came the valet subsequently explained by stating that he had placed a collar of osiers there to keep off the rub of the covering. There seemed an indignity about it which Mr. Hay found it hard to bear; but he got over it. Then the valet made a great fire of dry wood and grasses on a pinnacle; and the great column of smoke attracted the attention of a passing coaster, which bore down on the island to find out the reason of it. Bowes (that being the new name which Mr. Hay had found for his stable-valet) stood on the shore holding his charge with a halter of twisted grasses. The captain was surprised, but agreed to take them aboard, provided the horse could swim to the vessel, which could not get in: so Mr. Hay, with Bowes on his back, promptly took to the water, and was hoisted aboard in a sling from the davits. "That's a very remarkable animal!" said the Greek captain to Bowes. His dialect was atrocious. Bowes could not understand a word; but signs did just as well.