He knew that he was not only free, but safe from any active pursuit, for he felt sure that the gaolers, when they returned with their last load, would throw it in and fill up the grave, and that no suspicion that it contained one short of the number would arise.

This in itself was an immense advantage to him, for on the escape of a prisoner from Loches—­an event which had happened but once or twice in its records—­a gun was fired and the whole country turned out in pursuit of the prisoner.

Rupert paused for two minutes before commencing his flight, and kneeling down, thanked God for his escape.  Then he climbed the low ramparts, dropped beyond them, and struck across country.  The exercise soon sent the blood dancing through his hands again, and by the morning he was thirty-five miles from Loches.

He had stopped once, a mile or two after starting, when he came to a stream.  Into this he had waded, and had washed the muck stains from his clothes, hair, and face.

With the morning dawn his clothes were dry, and he presented to the eye an aspect similar to that which he wore when captured at Blois nearly a year before, of a dilapidated and broken-down soldier, for he had retained in prison the clothes he wore when captured; but they had become infinitely more dingy from the wear and tear of prison, and the soaking had destroyed all vestige of colour.

Presently he came to a mill by a stream.

“Hallo!” the miller said cheerily, from his door.  “You seem to have been in the wars, friend.”

“I have in my way,” Rupert said.  “I was wounded in Flanders.  I have been home to Bordeaux, and got cured again.  I started for the army again, and some tramps who slept in the same room with me robbed me of my last shilling.  To complete my disaster, last night, not having money to pay for a bed, I tramped on, fell into a stream, and was nearly drowned.”

“Come in,” said the miller.  “Wife, here is a poor fellow out of luck.  Give him a bowl of hot milk, and some bread.”

Chapter 21:  Back in Harness.

“You must have had a bad time of it.” the miller said, as he watched Rupert eating his breakfast.  “I don’t know that I ever saw anyone so white as you are, and yet you look strong, too.”

“I am strong,” Rupert said, “but I had an attack, and all my colour went.  It will come back again soon, but I am only just out.  You don’t want a man, do you?  I am strong and willing.  I don’t want to beg my way to the army, and I am ashamed of my clothes.  There will be no fighting till the spring.  I don’t want high pay, just my food and enough to get me a suit of rough clothes, and to keep me in bread and cheese as I go back.”

“From what part of France do you come?” the miller asked.  “You don’t speak French as people do hereabouts.”

“I come from Brittany,” Rupert said; “but I learnt to speak the Paris dialect there, and have almost forgotten my own, I have been so long away.”