swords. Ere they could draw, I had darted like a hare between them
and out into the street. The sergeant, cursing them with horrid
volubility, followed closely upon my heels.

Leaping as far into the roadway as I could, I turned to meet the
fellow's onslaught. Using the stool as a buckler, I caught his
thrust upon it. So violently was it delivered that the point
buried itself in the wood and the blade snapped, leaving him a
hilt and a stump of steel. I wasted no time in thought. Charging
him wildly, I knocked him over just as the two unhurt dragoons
came stumbling out of the tavern.

I gained my horse and vaulted into the saddle. Tearing the reins
from the urchin that held them, and driving my spurs into the beast's
flanks, I went careering down the street at a gallop, gripping
tightly with my knees, whilst the stirrups, which I had had no time
to step into, flew wildly about my legs.

A pistol cracked behind me; then another, and a sharp, stinging pain
in the shoulder warned me that I was hit. But I took no heed of it
then. The wound could not be serious, else I had already been out
of the saddle, and it would be time enough to look to it when I had
outdistanced my pursuers. I say my pursuers, for already there
were hoofbeats behind me, and I knew that those gentlemen had taken
to their horses. But, as you may recall, I had on their arrival
noted the jaded condition of their cattle, whilst I bestrode a
horse that was comparatively fresh, so that pursuit had but small
terrors for me. Nevertheless, they held out longer, and gave me
more to do than I had imagined would be the case. For nigh upon a
half-hour I rode, before I could be said to have got clear of them,