Page:A Book of Escapes and Hurried Journeys.pdf/13

Rh escapes I have chosen are, therefore, of a special type—the hustled kind, where there has been no time to spare, and the pursuer has either been hot-foot on the trail or the fugitive has moved throughout in an atmosphere of imminent peril.

It is, of course, in the operations of war that one looks for the greater examples. The most famous hurried journeys have been made by soldiers—by Alexander, Hannibal, and Julius Cesar; by Marlborough in his dash to Blenheim; by Napoleon many times; by Sir John Moore in his retreat to Corunna; by a dozen commanders in the Indian Mutiny; by Stonewall Jackson and Jeb Stuart in their whirlwind rides; by the fruitless expedition to relieve Gordon. But the operations of war are a little beside my purpose. In them the movement is, as a rule, only swift when compared with the normal pace of armies, and the cumbrousness and elaboration of the military machine lessen the feeling of personal adventure. I have included only one march of an army—Montrose’s, because his army was such a little one, its speed so amazing and its purpose so audacious, that its swoop upon Inverlochy may be said to belong to the class of personal exploits. For a