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At every minute he made a false step; he fell into every bog, and got up
covered with mud. At length he fell into a pond. It was several feet
deep. This washed him.
"
Bravo!" he said. "I am very clean, but I am very cold."
At four o'clock in the morning, as Henry had promised him, they reached
Messine, a Belgian village. The two Custom House lines had been cleared.
Cournet had nothing more to fear, either from the Custom House nor from
the coup d'état, neither from men nor from dogs.
He gave Henry the second fifty francs, and continued his journey on
foot, trusting somewhat to chance.
It was not until towards evening that he reached a railway station. He
got into a train, and at nightfall he arrived at the Southern Railway
Station at Brussels.
He had left Paris on the preceding morning, had not slept an hour, had
been walking all night, and had eaten nothing. On searching in his
pocket he missed his pocket book, but found a crust of bread. He was
more delighted at the discovery of the crust than grieved at the loss of
his pocket-book. He carried his money in a waistband; the pocket-book,
which had probably disappeared in the pond, contained his letters, and
amongst others an exceedingly useful letter of introduction from his
friend M. Ernest Koechlin, to the Representatives Guilgot and Carlos
Forel, who at that moment were refugees at Brussels, and lodged at the
Hôtel de Brabant.
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