I had taken advantage of the excitement of the fracas to slip from the post the rope that held us to the bank. We glided gently away down the river, with no one (unless it might have been Gustave, but he said nothing) noticing that we were moving until we were many yards below our mooring-place. The anger of the chevalier and his friends when they discovered it knew no bounds. Gustave was full of apologies for his carelessness, as he called it; I was dignified.
"Gustave," I said severely, "make a mooring as quickly as possible, that Monsieur le Chevalier and his friends may rejoin their horses."
Gustave made all haste apparently, but without doubt he fumbled, and we were some two or three hundred yards farther down the river before we were finally tied to the bank.
"Good-by, Messieurs," I said politely as the three hastened to leap ashore. "I trust you will have no difficulty in recovering your horses."
They stayed not upon the order of their going, as Mr. Shakspere says, but scrambled up the bank and on to the hot and stony road, and the sun, now well up in the sky, beating strongly on their backs, they started at a round pace toward Paris, their horses by this time out of sight around a distant bend in the road.
Cæsar had given up the pursuit and returned to where he had tied our horses. I signaled to him to bring them down the river, and mounting his and leading mine, he was soon at our mooring-place.
Riding down the soft turf of the shady bridle-path a few minutes later, I heard Cæsar chuckling behind me. I turned in my saddle:
"What is it, Cæsar?"
"I done it, Marsa!"
"Did what, Cæsar?"