"Yes, my captain," answered the man who stood at their head.
"Boot and saddle, then, friend Green, and we shall not draw rein again until we see the lights of Paris in front of us."
The soldier-groom peered through the darkness after them with a sardonic smile upon his face. "You won't draw rein, won't you?" he muttered as he turned away. "Well, we shall see about that, my captain; we shall see about that."
For a mile or more the comrades galloped along, neck to neck and knee to knee. A wind had sprung up from the westward, and the heavens were covered with heavy gray clouds, which drifted swiftly across, a crescent moon peeping fitfully from time to time between the rifts. Even during these moments of brightness the road, shadowed as it was by heavy trees, was very dark, but when the light was shut off it was hard, but for the loom upon either side, to tell where it lay. De Catinat at least found it so, and he peered anxiously over his horse's ears, and stooped his face to the mane in his efforts to see his way.
"What do you make of the road?" he asked at last.
"It looks as if a good many carriage wheels had passed over it to-day."
"What! Mon Dieu! Do you mean to say that you can see carriage wheels there?"
"Certainly. Why not?"
"Why, man, I cannot see the road at all."
Amos Green laughed heartily. "When you have travelled in the woods by night as often as I have," said he, "when to show a light may mean to lose your hair, one comes to learn to use one's eyes."