“Do not be anxious if I do not come along for half an hour.  It will be more natural that I should call for bread and cheese and beer and eat them there; then I can say carelessly that I may as well take some with me to eat later on.”

“You are early!” the owner of the cabaret said as Hector entered.

“I ought to have been earlier,” he replied in a grumbling voice; “but it was so late before I reached the other side of the forest, that instead of passing through it I thought it best to wait till daybreak, for it would be desperately dark under the trees, and sometimes there are pretty rough fellows to be met with there; so I slept in a shed until an hour before daybreak and then started, and I lost no time in getting through it, I can tell you.  What can you give me now?”

“The usual thing,” the man said, shrugging his shoulders.  “Bread and beer and black sausage.”

“It might be worse,” Hector said as he seated himself.  The food was soon placed before him.  He ate a hearty meal.

“I have a long way to go,” he said when he had finished, “and as I am blessed with a good appetite it will not be long before I am hungry again.  I suppose there is no one in the village that sells bread and sausage, so if you will let me I will buy a whole one from you and a couple of loaves.”

“I will sell them to you willingly enough; but you will come to another village three miles on.”

“I sha’n’t be hungry enough by that time,” Hector laughed.  “Besides, I like to choose my own place and time and sit down by the wayside and eat my meal.  One need never go very far without coming upon a stream; and though I like beer better than water, I can put up with it when there is nothing stronger to be had.”

“Nothing but bread and sausage again, Paolo,” Hector said as he joined his comrade a quarter of a mile beyond the village.

“And good enough too for a hungry man.  I have often longed for such a meal in the days before you took me, in spite of all warning.”

“And we have often done no better since, Paolo, when we have been on the march.  Will you start on it now, or wait until we get to a stream?”

“I will hold on for a bit, master.  This black bread is so hard that it needs a lot of washing down.”

Making several detours to avoid villages, they walked all day, and towards evening came upon a main road running west.

“Unless I am mistaken in the line that I have taken, this must be the road through Eichstadt.  I can see some towers ahead, and I have no doubt that they are those of the town.  There is a bridge there across the Altmuhl.  The river makes a loop at this point, and the road cuts across it to the northwest to Gunzenhausen, where there is another bridge.  From there the road runs to Hall.  Thence we can cross the Neckar, either at Heilbronn or Neckarsulm, and we are then in our own country, and but a short distance from either Spires or Philippsburg, where we shall be likely enough to meet Turenne advancing again, or shall at any rate learn where he is.  We will lie up now and not cross the bridge until it gets dusk.”