"It is plain enough what our best course is, Dick. We must go along this projecting point of Brittany through Dinan to Avranches, and then follow the coast up till we get to Coutances. You see it is nearly opposite Jersey, and that island does not look to be more than fifteen miles away so that, if we can get hold of a boat there, we should be able to run across in three hours or so, with favourable wind." "That looks easy enough," Ryan agreed. "It seems to be about one hundred and twenty miles from here to Avranches, and another thirty or forty up to Coutances, so we should do it in a week, easily. What stories shall we make up, if we are questioned?" "I don't suppose the peasants we may meet on the road are likely to question us at all, for most of the Bretons speak only their own language. We had better always sleep out in the open. If we do run across an official, we can show our papers and give out that we have been ill treated on board the lugger, and are going to Saint Malo, where we mean to ship on another privateer. I know that is a port from which lots of them sail. I don't think we shall have any difficulty in buying provisions at small villages. My French will pass muster very well in such places, and I can easily remark that we are on our way to Saint Malo to join a ship there and, if any village functionary questions us, these papers will be good enough for him. "Or we can say that we got left ashore by accident, when our craft sailed from Brest, and are going to rejoin her at Saint Malo, where she was going to put in. I think, perhaps, that that would be a better story than that we had run away. I don't know that the authorities interest themselves in runaway seamen from privateers but, at any rate, it is a likely tale. Drunken seamen, no doubt, often do get left ashore." "Yes, that would be a very good story, Terence, and I think that there would be no great fear, even if we were to go boldly into a town." "I don't think there would; still, it is better to be on the safe side, and avoid all risks." Accordingly, the afternoon before the Belle Jeanne was to sail they went ashore, bought enough bread and cold meat to last them for a couple of days; and two thick blankets, as it was now November and the nights were bitterly cold; and then left the town and followed the road for Dinan. On approaching the village of Landerneau they left the road, and lay down until it was quite dark. Then they made a detour through the fields, round the village, came down on the road again, walked all night--passing through Huelgoat--and then, as morning was breaking they left the road again and, after going a quarter of a mile through the fields, lay down in a dry ditch by the side of a thick hedge, ate a meal, and went to sleep.