In a quarter of an hour Adele, thoroughly fatigued with her day's
exertions, went to lie down on the bed ordinarily used by the
farmer's daughter. The marquis wrapped himself in his cloak and lay
down in front of the fire, while Rupert took the first watch
outside.
The night passed quietly, and at daybreak the next morning the
party were again in their saddles. Their intention was to ride by
cross lanes parallel to the main road, and to come into that road
again when they felt sure they were ahead of their pursuers, who,
with riding nearly all night, would be certain to come to the
conclusion that they were ahead of the fugitives, and would begin
to search for some signs of where they had left the road.
They instructed their hosts to make no secret of their having been
there, but to tell the exact truth as to their time of arrival and
departure, and to say that from their conversation they were going
south to La Rochelle.
The windings of the country roads that they traversed added greatly
to the length of the journey, and the marquis proposed that they
should strike at once across it for Nantes. Rupert, however, begged
him to continue the line that they had chosen and to show at least
once on the La Rochelle road, so as to lead their pursuers to the
conclusion that it was to that town that they were bound.
In the middle of the day they halted for two hours at a farmhouse,
and allowed their horses to rest and feed, and then shifted the
saddles again, for Rupert had, since starting in the morning, run
the greater part of the way with his hand on the horse's saddle, so
that the animal was quite fresh when they reached their first
halting place.
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