'Suppose,' she said, 'we push on another stage? The sun is not so very dreadful, after all.'
'The next two stages are bad ones,' said Boldero. 'Don't you remember that long, troublesome valley with the rocks on either side?—by twelve o'clock they will be all red-hot.'
'Well,' said Maud, 'we will tie a wet towel over my head. Will it do you any harm? or the horses?'
'Me!' cried Boldero, in a tone which at once reassured his companion that no danger need be apprehended so far as he was concerned; 'as for my horses, they can, of course, go as many stages as you like.'
So they dressed and breakfasted and Maud declared herself quite ready for an immediate start. Boldero brought in a great plantain-leaf from the garden of the little inn, and they tied this under her wide pith hat; then Maud armed herself with an enormous umbrella, and 'Now,' she said, 'I am prepared for anything.'
By the end of the stage, however, her strength was spent: she sank into the first chair that offered itself, and acquiesced thankfully, like a tired child, in Boldero's decision that they should not move again till the day's fierce glare was past. There was no need to hurry, for she was now within a night's march of her husband, and by the morrow's morning would have known and seen the worst.