I didn't want to break him in suddenly, but do it by degrees.

We should have to sit together now when in company, or people would notice; but it would not be good politics for me to be playing equality with him when there was no necessity for it.
I found the water some three hundred yards away, and had been resting about twenty minutes, when I heard voices.

That is all right, I thought--peasants going to work; nobody else likely to be stirring this early.

But the next moment these comers jingled into sight around a turn of the road--smartly clad people of quality, with luggage-mules and servants in their train! I was off like a shot, through the bushes, by the shortest cut.

For a while it did seem that these people would pass the king before I could get to him; but desperation gives you wings, you know, and I canted my body forward, inflated my breast, and held my breath and flew.
I arrived.