The travellers were passing now through the narrow territory of the Margrave of Baden, with the Rhine upon their right, the only protection from the frontier of France with all its hostile hosts.

The slow and inactive policy of the Margrave of Baden naturally encouraged the enemy to send small parties of soldiers across to harry his country; and already Tom and his master had had to dodge and hide, or go out of their way, to avoid meeting with these bands of inimical marauders.  They were not the class of opponents whom Lord Claud most dreaded, still they might well fall upon and make prisoner the two English travellers; and if despatches were found upon the person of either, they would almost certainly be shot as spies.  Indeed, so bitter was the feeling on the part of the French after their defeat at Blenheim, that any travellers belonging to the hated English nation went in danger of their lives.

For some time now Tom had been wearing the garb of a serving man.  His peruke had disappeared, and he wore a little dark wig that looked like his natural hair.  It excited less comment for master and servant to travel from town to town together than for two English gentlemen to be riding unattended through such a disturbed country; and as they pursued their way, Lord Claud would give minute and precise directions to Tom how to act in the event of their falling in with one of these scouting or marauding parties, showing such a wonderful knowledge of the tactics of forest warfare that Tom was often astonished at him, and would have liked to ask where he had obtained his experience.

And now, for the first time, Tom was face to face with a real foe—­no mere antagonist of the hour, with whom he had exchanged some angry word, and was ready to follow it up with blows, but with armed foes of a hostile race, whose blood was stirred by the hatred bred of long-continued warfare, and who would think as little of taking the lives of two Englishmen as Tom would of shooting a fat buck in his native woodlands.

Again came the word of command in the hoarse voice.

“Halt! and declare yourselves, or—­”

But the threat remained unspoken, for Lord Claud had drawn rein, and was looking at the speaker with eyes of mild inquiry.

“What is your will, monsieur?” he asked, in his easy and excellent French.

At this seeming show of submission the face of the officer relaxed, and the men in his company lowered their carbines and stood more at ease pending the result of the dialogue.

“Monsieur is not a Frenchman?” questioned the officer, with a look from one face to the other.

Tom sat gazing before him with a stolid expression of countenance, which greatly belied the tingling which he felt through every vein in his body.  It seemed as though this tingling sensation was in some way communicated to the mare he rode, for she began fidgeting in a fashion which plainly told Tom that she was ready to do her part when the tussle should come.