“But you?” she protested.
“No protest, please. I am good for more than a mile at fair speed.”
“You do all this for a stranger,” she said, her eyes lighting as she looked down at me.
“Oh, we shan’t always be strangers. Keep him going. I can’t talk and run at the same time. Be merciful;” and with that we set off at a good round trot. I held to the stirrup and so had no difficulty in keeping up.
In about five minutes we turned off the road and the cottage was soon in sight. By good fortune the man I sought, Michel, was in the patch of garden and greeted me with a smile. I came to the point at once.
“Michel, you have often asked for a chance of repaying that little debt. You can do it now. I want you and your sister, Testa, to help me. You are to ride my horse and your sister yours, and start at once. Ride down the Devil’s Staircase, strike out any way you like at the bottom; ride for four or five hours; you in the name of Ivan Grubel, your sister as Mary Smith, an English girl. At the end of the ride, which must be as near a railway station as you can manage, turn my horse adrift to go where he will; and then make your way home secretly. And no one must know of your absence. You’ll do this?”
“Why yes, Excellency. Testa, Testa;” and he ran in calling his sister.
“Now for the coat? It will be the best possible thing to create the false trail with.”
“The papers are here in the lining.”
“Get them out then at once, please. We have no minutes to lose.” I handed her a knife and she found them.