“There! hold on there,” said the driver to him, in a stern voice,—­“hold on well, or you’ll be down head foremost under the horses’ heels, at the first pitch we come to.”

The poor sailor said nothing, but grasped an iron bar which passed from the top of the coach down by the side of the seat, and held on as well as he could.

They rode on in this manner for some miles, the head of the sailor swinging back and forth, helplessly, as if he was nearly asleep.  Whenever Marco or the driver spoke to him, he either answered in a thick and sleepy tone of voice, or he did not reply at all.  Marco watched him for a time, being continually afraid that he would fall off.  He could do nothing, however, to help him, for he himself was sitting at one end of the seat while the sailor was upon the other, the driver being between them.  In the mean time the sun gradually went down and the twilight came on, and as the shadows extended themselves slowly over the landscape, Marco began to find riding outside less pleasant than it had been before, and he thought that, on the whole, he should be very glad when the time arrived for him to get into the coach again, with his cousin.

At length they came to a bridge, covered with planks, which led across a small stream.  It was in rather a solitary place, with woods on each side of the road.  Beyond the bridge there was a level piece of road for a short distance, and then a gentle ascent, with a farmhouse near the top of it, on the right hand side of the road.  At the end of the bridge, between the planks and the ground beyond them, there was a jolt, caused by the rotting away of a log which had been imbedded in the ground at the beginning of the planking.  As it was rather dark, on account of the shade of the trees, the driver did not observe this jolt, and he was just beginning to put his horses to the trot, as they were leaving the bridge, when the forward wheels struck down heavily into the hollow, giving the front of the coach a sudden pitch forward and downward.  Marco grasped the iron bar at his end of the seat, and saved himself; and the driver, who was habitually on his guard, had his feet so braced against the fender before him, that he would not have fallen.  But the poor sailor, entirely unprepared for the shock, and perhaps unable to resist it if he had been prepared, pitched forward, lost his hold, went over the fender, and was tumbling down, as the driver had predicted, head foremost, under the horses’ heels.  The driver seized hold of him with one hand, but finding this insufficient dropped his reins and tried to grasp him with both.  In doing it, however, he lost his own balance and went over too.  He, of course, let go of the sailor, when he found that he was going himself.  The sailor fell heavily and helplessly between the pole and the side of one of the horses, to the ground.  The driver followed.  He seized the pole with one hand, but was too late to save himself entirely, and thinking there was danger of being dragged, and finding that the horses were springing forward in a fright, he let himself drop through to the ground also.  The coach passed over them in a moment, as the horses cantered on.