He was thinking—had been thinking all the way from Plymouth—only of the harbour at his feet, and the town beyond. His eyes rested on them again, after ten years. All the way his heart had promised him nothing but this. He had forgotten self; having in ten years, and painfully, learnt that lesson.
But the music of the bells, the distant sounds of cheering, recalled that forgotten self; or perhaps it leapt into assertiveness again unwittingly, by association of ideas with the old familiar scene. He had left the people cheering.… Was it ten years ago? They were cheering still.…
The road within view was deserted. But from below the dip of the hill the cheers ascended, louder and louder yet, deepening in volume.
He had intended to walk down the hill—as he hoped, unrecognised— cross the ferry, and traverse the streets of Troy to his own front door; then, or later, to announce himself. A thousand times in his far prison in Briancon among the high Alps he had pictured it. He had discounted all possibilities of change. In ten years, to be sure, much may happen.…
But here below him lay the harbour and the town, save for these evidences of joy surprisingly unchanged.
Why were the church bells ringing; the people shouting? Could word have been carried to them? He could not conceive how the news had managed to outstrip him.
He had left the people cheering; they were cheering still.… Were these ten years, then, but a grotesque and hideous dream? He gazed down upon his wooden leg, stiffly protruding before him and pointing, as it were ironically, at the scene of which it shared no memories.
A moment later he lifted his head at the sound of hoofs galloping up the road towards him. Round the corner, on a shaggy yellow horse almost ventre-a-terre, came a little man in a cocked hat, who rose in his stirrups drunkenly and blew a kiss to a dozen armed pursuers pounding at his heels.
Between wonder and alarm, the Major (you have guessed it was he) sprang up from his seat by the fountain. Fatal movement! At the sudden apparition the yellow horse shied violently, swerving more than halfway across the road; and its rider, looking backwards and taken at unawares, was shot out of his stirrups and flung shoulders-over-head in the dust, where he rolled sideways and lay still. His pursuers reined up with loud outcries of dismay. The Major advanced to the body, knelt beside it and turned it over. The man was bleeding from a cut in the head; but this and a slight concussion of the brain appeared to be the extent of his injuries. His neck-cloth being loosened, he groaned heavily. The Major looked up.
"A nasty shock! For the moment I was half afraid—"