He tried to plunge into the woods, but the ditch was impassable for horseman and horse. He waited a few moments, then ventured to look around. The phantom, which had raised its head, disappeared as quickly as before. "Can it be that he is as much afraid of me as I am of him?" said Arnauld to himself. "Are we equally anxious to avoid each other? Well, I must do something, since this infernal undergrowth prevents my going across through the woods to the other road. Must I go back to the fork in the road! That would be the surest way. May I not bravely put my horse on the run and pass my man like a flash? That would be the shortest way to do. He is on foot, and unless a shot from an arquebuse--but no, I won't give him time for that." No sooner resolved than carried out. Arnauld drove both spurs into his horse's sides, and went by the man in ambush or hiding like a streak of lightning. The man did not stir. That rather lessened Arnauld's terror; he pulled up his horse, and even went back a few steps, acting upon a thought that had suddenly occurred to him. Still the man gave no sign of life. Thereupon all Arnauld's courage came back to him; and now, almost certain that he was right in his conjecture, he rode straight up to the ditch. But at this juncture, and before he had time even to utter an exclamation, the man gave one leap, and releasing Arnauld' right foot from the stirrup with a sudden movement, and throwing it roughly over the saddle, he cast the squire from his horse, fell to the ground upon him, and seized him by the throat with his knee on his chest. All this took place in less than twenty seconds. "Who are you? What do you want?" asked the victor of his fallen foe. "Let me get up, I beseech you!" said the almost strangled voice of Arnauld, who felt that he had met his master. "I am a Frenchman; but I have a safe-conduct from Lord Wentworth, governor of Calais." "If you are a Frenchman," said the man,--"and in truth you seem not to have an accent like all these demons of foreigners,--I have no need of your passport. But what made you approach me in such an extraordinary way?" "I thought that I saw a man in the ditch," said Arnauld, as the pressure on his chest was somewhat relaxed; "and I was coming to see if it wasn't a wounded man, and if there wasn't something I could do for him." "Your purpose was good," said the man, withdrawing his hand and taking away his knee. "Come, get up, comrade," he added, extending his hand to Arnauld, who was soon on his feet. "I gave you rather a--rather a rough welcome; but you must excuse me, because I have no mind just now to have anybody interfering with my affairs. But you are a fellow-countryman, which is a very different matter; and far from injuring me, you may do me a great service. Let us get to know each other first. My name is Martin-Guerre; and yours?"