"I suppose you are going to Saint Malo," the woman said.
"Yes. We have had a holiday to see some friends at Brest, and are going to rejoin."
This was the only question asked and, after walking another two miles, they lay up for the day as before. They had met several peasants on the road, and had exchanged salutations with them. They found by their map that they were now within twenty miles of Dinan, having made over thirty miles each night and, as both were somewhat footsore from their unaccustomed exercise, they travelled only some sixteen or seventeen miles the following night.
The next evening, at about ten o'clock, they walked boldly through Dinan. Most of the inhabitants were already asleep, and the few who were still in the streets paid no heed to two sailors; going, they had no doubt, to Saint Malo. Crossing the river Rance by the bridge, they took the road in the direction of the port but, after following it for a mile or two, struck off to the east and, before morning, arrived on the river running up from the bay of Mount Saint Michaels. They lay down until late in the afternoon, and then crossed the river at a ferry, and kept along by the coast until they reached the Sebine river.
"We are getting on first rate," Ryan said, as they lay down for a few hours' sleep. "We have only got Avranches to pass, now."
"I hope we sha'n't be questioned at all, Dick, for we have now no good story to tell them; for we are going away from Saint Malo, instead of to it. Of course, as long as they don't question us we are all right. We are simply two sailors on our way home for a time; but if we have to show our papers, with those Spanish names on them, we should be in a fix. Of course, we might have run away from our ship at Saint Malo, but that would not explain our coming up this way. However, I hope my French is good enough to answer any casual questions without exciting attention. We will cross by the ferry boat, as soon as it begins to ply and, as Avranches stands some little distance up the river, we can avoid it altogether by keeping along the coastline."
A score of peasants had assembled by the time the ferry boat man made his appearance from his cottage, and Terence and his companion, who had been lying down 200 yards away, joined them just as they were going down to the boat.
"You are from Saint Malo, I suppose?" an old peasant said to Terence.
The latter nodded.
"We have got a month's leave from our ship," he said. "She has been knocked about by an English cruiser, and will be in the shipwright's hands for five or six weeks, before she is ready for sea again."