At the end of that time I calculated that I had put nearly twenty miles between the prison and myself.  Day was about to break, so I crouched down among the heather upon the top of one of those small hills which abound in that country, with the intention of hiding myself until nightfall.  It was no new thing for me to sleep in the wind and the rain, so, wrapping myself up in my thick warm cloak, I soon sank into a doze.

But it was not a refreshing slumber.  I tossed and tumbled amid a series of vile dreams, in which everything seemed to go wrong with me.  At last, I remember, I was charging an unshaken square of Hungarian Grenadiers, with a single squadron upon spent horses, just as I did at Elchingen.  I stood in my stirrups to shout ‘Vive l’Empereur!’ and as I did so, there came the answering roar from my hussars, ‘Vive l’Empereur!’ I sprang from my rough bed, with the words still ringing in my ears, and then, as I rubbed my eyes, and wondered if I were mad, the same cry came again, five thousand voices in one long-drawn yell.  I looked out from my screen of brambles, and saw in the clear light of morning the very last thing that I should either have expected or chosen.

It was Dartmoor Prison!  There it stretched, grim and hideous, within a furlong of me.  Had I run on for a few more minutes in the dark, I should have butted my shako against the wall.  I was so taken aback at the sight, that I could scarcely realize what had happened.  Then it all became clear to me, and I struck my head with my hands in my despair.  The wind had veered from north to south during the night, and I, keeping my face always towards it, had run ten miles out and ten miles in, winding up where I had started.  When I thought of my hurry, my falls, my mad rushing and jumping, all ending in this, it seemed so absurd, that my grief changed suddenly to amusement, and I fell among the brambles, and laughed, and laughed, until my sides were sore.  Then I rolled myself up in my cloak and considered seriously what I should do.

One lesson which I have learned in my roaming life, my friends, is never to call anything a misfortune until you have seen the end of it.  Is not every hour a fresh point of view?  In this case I soon perceived that accident had done for me as much as the most profound cunning.  My guards naturally commenced their search from the place where I had taken Sir Charles Meredith’s coat, and from my hiding-place I could see them hurrying along the road to that point.  Not one of them ever dreamed that I could have doubled back from there, and I lay quite undisturbed in the little bush-covered cup at the summit of my knoll.  The prisoners had, of course, learned of my escape, and all day exultant yells, like that which had aroused me in the morning, resounded over the moor, bearing a welcome message of sympathy and companionship to my ears.  How little did they dream that on the top of that very mound, which they could see from