'In part,' I answered. 'The horse is better than its looks.'

'Like many others,' he rejoined, a spark of resentment in his
tone--'men as well as horses, M. de Marsac. But What do you say?
Shall we canter on a little and overtake the others?'

Thinking it well to do so, I assented readily, and we started
together. We had ridden, however, no more than a hundred yards,
and I was only beginning to extend the bay, when Fresnoy,
slightly drawing rein, turned in his saddle and looked back. The
next moment he cried, 'Hallo! what is this? Those fellows are
not following us, are they?'

I turned sharply to look. At that moment, without falter or
warning, the bay horse went down under me as if shot dead,
throwing me half a dozen yards over its head; and that so
suddenly that I had no time to raise my arms, but, falling
heavily on my head and shoulder, lost consciousness.

I have had many falls, but no other to vie with that in utter
unexpectedness. When I recovered my senses I found myself
leaning, giddy and sick, against the bole of an old thorn-tree.
Fresnoy and Matthew supported me on either side, and asked me how
I found myself; while the other three men, their forms black
against the stormy evening sky, sat their horses a few paces in
front of me. I was too much dazed at first to see more, and this
only in a mechanical fashion; but gradually, my brain grew
clearer, and I advanced from wondering who the strangers round me
were to recognising them, and finally to remembering what had
happened to me.