“I think that perhaps you had best ride into Paris at your leisure, my friend,” said he.  “If I go upon the king’s service I cannot be delayed whenever the whim takes you.”

“I am sorry,” answered the other quietly.  “I had something to say to your major, and I thought that maybe I might not see him again.”

“Well, here are the horses,” said the guardsman as he pushed open the postern-gate.  “Have you fed an watered them, Jacques?”

“Yes, my captain,” answered the man who stood at their head.

“Boot and saddle, then, friend Green, and we shall not draw rein again until we see the lights of Paris in front of us.”

The soldier-groom peered through the darkness after them with a sardonic smile upon his face.  “You won’t draw rein, won’t you?” he muttered as he turned away.  “Well, we shall see about that, my captain; we shall see about that.”

For a mile or more the comrades galloped along, neck to neck and knee to knee.  A wind had sprung up from the westward, and the heavens were covered with heavy gray clouds, which drifted swiftly across, a crescent moon peeping fitfully from time to time between the rifts.  Even during these moments of brightness the road, shadowed as it was by heavy trees, was very dark, but when the light was shut off it was hard, but for the loom upon either side, to tell where it lay.  De Catinat at least found it so, and he peered anxiously over his horse’s ears, and stooped his face to the mane in his efforts to see his way.

“What do you make of the road?” he asked at last.

“It looks as if a good many carriage wheels had passed over it to-day.”

“What! Mon Dieu! Do you mean to say that you can see carriage wheels there?”

“Certainly.  Why not?”

“Why, man, I cannot see the road at all.”

Amos Green laughed heartily.  “When you have travelled in the woods by night as often as I have,” said he, “when to show a light may mean to lose your hair, one comes to learn to use one’s eyes.”

“Then you had best ride on, and I shall keep just behind you.  So! Hola! What is the matter now?”

There had been the sudden sharp snap of something breaking, and the American had reeled for an instant in the saddle.

“It’s one of my stirrup leathers.  It has fallen.”

“Can you find it?”

“Yes; but I can ride as well without it.  Let us push on.”

“Very good.  I can just see you now.”

They had galloped for about five minutes in this fashion, De Catinat’s horse’s head within a few feet of the other’s tail, when there was a second snap, and the guardsman rolled out of the saddle on to the ground.  He kept his grip of the reins, however, and was up in an instant at his horse’s head, sputtering out oaths as only an angry Frenchman can.

“A thousand thunders of heaven!” he cried.  “What was it that happened then?”