“Capital, Paolo!  It is evident that your head is not so thick as you thought it was just now.  Yes, I have noticed that as a rule if eight or ten waggons came in together, the full sacks are carried in, and the same number of empty ones are placed in one of the carts, being counted as they are put in.  Certainly I could hide myself easily enough if you were there to assist in arranging the sacks as regularly as before over me.  As I do not generally get up until eight o’clock, and my first meal is not brought to me till nine, I might be on my way two hours before it was discovered that I was missing.  How would you manage?”

“I would get a countryman’s suit, master, would go out soon after the gates were open, find some quiet spot where I should have hidden the clothes the day before, and slip them on over my own.  Then I would join the carts as they came along.  They don’t generally begin to harness the horses up till the gates are open, so that I should get a quarter of an hour’s start of them, and I should go out with them without question, as it would be thought that I belonged to the party.  I should pay for some beer at the first cabaret we come to, and make signs that I wanted a lift in a waggon.  I must, of course, pretend to be deaf and dumb, as, although I have picked up a little German since we came into these parts, I could not possibly pass as a countryman.”

“It would be better still, Paolo, for you to put a blister on to your cheek, then before you join them put a great lump of tow into your mouth, so as to swell your cheek out almost to bursting point, and then tie a bandage round your face; you could then by pointing to it make out that you had so terrible a swelling that you were unable to talk.”

“That would be better certainly, master, indeed, it would be a capital plan.  Of course I should get into the waggon in which you were, and gradually shift the sacks so that you could crawl out.  When we smuggled you in we would try and put in with you a couple of brace of pistols, and if we were armed with them the carters would not venture to interfere with us.  Of course, master, I should have to get a disguise for you.  We could never be tramping across the country with you dressed as a French officer.”

“Get something that I could put over the clothes I wear.  A long frock, some loose breeches, and rough cloth to wrap round the legs below them, and of course a pair of countryman’s shoes.  The best plan would be for you to stand treat again at a cabaret a few miles out of the town, get them all in there, then I could slip out of the waggon and throw the sacks back into their place.  Of course you would choose some spot where the cabaret either stands alone or is at the end of a village, so that there may be no one standing by, and I could, when I got down, walk quietly back along the road.  You can make signs to them that you live hard by, and would leave them there; then if there should be any suspicion that I had escaped in the waggons, and a troop of cavalry were sent in pursuit, the men would be all able to declare that they had seen nothing of me, and so could give no clue whatever that would set them on our track.