After all, they were but twelve men all told, and he accounted it a stupid thing to attempt to take a short cut across the hills for the purpose of overtaking an encumbered troop that must of necessity be moving at a very much slower pace.

This was the way not to overtake but to outdistance.

Yet since it was not for him to remonstrate with the lieutenant, he kept his peace and hoped anxiously for the best.
At the mean wine-shop of that hamlet Mr.Butler inquired his way by the simple expedient of shouting "Tavora ?" with a strong interrogative inflection.

The vintner made it plain by gestures--accompanied by a rattling musketry of incomprehensible speech that their way lay straight ahead.

And straight ahead they went, following that mule track for some five or six miles until it began to slope gently towards the plain again.