though it rained pistols and bullets I must go." He went into
the passage, and calling his host secretly asked for his score.
Mitchelbourne made a further effort to detain him.

"Make an inquiry of the landlord first. It may be a mere shadow that
frightens you."

"Not a word, not a question," Lance implored. The mere suggestion
increased a panic which seemed incapable of increase. "And for the
shadow, why, that's true. The pipe's the shadow, and the shadow
frightens me. A shadow! Yes! A shadow is a horrible, threatning thing!
Show me a shadow cast by nothing and I am with you. But you might as
easily hold that this Barbary pipe floated hither across the seas of
its own will. No! 'Ware shadows, I say." And so he continued harping
on the word, till the landlord fetched in the bill.

The landlord had his dissuasions too, but they availed not a jot more
than Mr. Mitchelbourne's.

"The road is as black as a pauper's coffin," said he, "and damnable
with ruts."

"So much the better," said Lance.

"There is no house where you can sleep nearer than Glemham, and no man
would sleep there could he kennel elsewhere."

"So much the better," said Lance. "Besides, I am expected to-morrow
evening at 'The Porch' and Glemham is on the way." He paid his bill,
slipped over to the stables and lent a hand to the saddling of his